Amateur night

If we had a brand or phrase book for me, this would surely be in it. It’s most Saturdays on the road in Boston, when all the suburbanites drive into the big city. It’s being on the train when there’s a concert and people start shoving their way to the door while the train is still moving, even though 70% of the passengers will get off at the next stop.

But I have an entirely different kind of amateur hour on the brain. Radio commercials. Let me point out that last night, I actually heard one that started, “Are you tired of sex pills that don’t work?” Oh my god, get out of my head! Yes, that is my EXACT problem, I said aloud to the radio, how did you know? But that’s not even what I want to talk about (after all, how could I--especially during wartime--defame the brave ‘sex pill’ advertisers and their important products?).

On a scale of sheer intolerability, the worst radio ad ever is “Kars 4 Kids”--I don’t even know, they misspell the word cars intentionally and it’s got this jingle that makes me want to beat my head against the dashboard.. We’re talking, I change the station within 3 seconds awful.

More annoying is the latest Coca Cola spot with some guy on a road trip and his friends have fallen asleep on his arms, so, oh no, he can’t drink his Coke. He tries to wake them up to no avail. I mean, it’s not a life-changing piece of advertising, but on both concept and execution, it’s done competently. This competence is then underscored by a 15-second local ad that piggybacks the national spot. It’s like, “Okay class, first I’m going to show you how to execute a concept, and then we’ll see how to take the same concept and ruin it.

After the national ad reminds us that Coke is enjoyable, local guy is all “Your Coca Cola arm is so important, it lifts your ice cold refreshing Coke that you bought from Joe’s Convenience Store to your eagerly waiting mouth.” I’m pretty sure they have the one shitty script and just cram in the name of whatever gas station or convenience store chain wants to pay for it this week. What annoys me is that waxing poetic on one’s “Coca Cola arm” beats the original concept to death with its total lack of subtlety, in essence dragging down the preceding spot while not in any way supporting the local client.

If you’re thinking, oh well, it’s easy to talk shit and radio is an easy target (I won’t deny it), this is a simple thing that contrasts the difference between a competent creative who knows how to use the medium and a hack who doesn’t know what the fuck they’re doing. The local piggyback should be about the many convenient locations of the outlet where you can stop for a Coke on your next roadtrip. It doesn’t sound creative, but it ties in the theme of the national brand with the needs of the local client in a way that makes sense.