The Writer’s Coin

OK so today I’m back to Netflix. I know, I know, it seems I just can’t let it go. But while I was taking a walk around the block last week, thinking of a concept for a whole ‘nother campaign, my mind made another connection to the mailman idea.

So I have the concept, but I’m having an impossible time trying to get the visual for it. Welcome to the budding copywriter’s biggest headache.

I have no art director partner or any of that right now, it’s all on me. While I have some pretty decent Photoshop skills, I can’t draw worth a damn. So let me put forth my ad as though I did:

Product: Netflix (yeah yeah, again)
Medium: Print, Outdoor
Campaign Tag Line: None. I’m going for minimalist with all the focus on the image (hence my issue with the art on this one)

Image: [a dark-ish, high contrast picture of a fat (not obese or anything, just obviously overweight) man standing on a scale, looking down at it over his protruding belly. His uniform shirt unbuttoned and the belly is sticking out. A United States Postal Service patch on his sleeve. The man is a mailman and he's fat.]

Text: Netflix. Instantly.

-o-

There. That’s it. It’s going back to the idea that with Netflix’s Watch Instantly feature you don’t need to wait for the movie you chose to come in the mail. You essentially don’t need the mailman anymore. So he’s getting a little fat without all those Netflix envelopes in his bag. I hate to spell it out like this here but without the image I have no idea if the concept is conveyed or not. Which sucks.

The idea came to me as I was trying to think of anything and everything mailman related. What happens to a mailman on his routes? What does he do? So he walks a lot. So there’s a lot of exercise involved. So what happens if everyone starts using Watch Instantly? How does this affect the mailman? What is the fastest, less chatty way of conveying this? And so on, that’s how I finally got to this. I wanted to stay away from cliché type stuff like dog chases or “going postal.”

Any tips on how to overcome this? Choose a campaign I can find adequate visuals for? Abandon Netflix already?

Tags: netflix ad, pictures for ads