The Writers Coin

You may or may not have seen this ad before, but it’s a famous one from the folks over at Coca Cola. In case you didn’t know, they have a much longer version (almost a making of/documentary sort of spoof) that they show down at Coke World in Atlanta (which is actually a lot more fun that you’d think).

Anyway, the reason I want you to see it is because I suck at drawing and this is as close as I can come to the concept I’m after:

Product: Bank of America (multiple services)
Medium: TV
Campaign: Done and Done

A man/woman sitting at a cubicle, can’t wait to get out. There is a buzz in the air, it’s Friday. A coworker gets a paycheck but our protagonist (P) doesn’t, simply starts walking out towards the elevator. Coworker in background is squinting and furrowing a brow at her own paycheck.

[Music: something with tic tocs in it, like a fast-paced clock]

In a flash of light we see P’s paycheck being wired at light speed to . . . Bank of America. Once it gets there it turns into hundreds of dollar bills and explodes all over a round room with tubes going in every direction. It looks like the inside of an octopus and a cheery looking thing with several limbs (thinking octopus again) is picking at the bills, double checking P’s info on a screen and putting the different tentacle-fulls of bills in the different tubes.

One bundle of bills shoots (again, in a flash) over to what looks like a trading floor populated by little blobs dressed in trader vests. [Music here goes to the intro of The Apprentice: Money money money muhhhhh-ney] The little blobs are shouting and screaming, numbers crawling all over. It’s crazy but these little blobs are getting it done. This money is being invested.

Another of the bundles of money (again in a flash, and all very quickly) is being shot over to a round, fat, squat looking creature standing in front of a huge vault door (which has a digital reader on it showing “1,400 at 4.1% APY”). He has a little police badge on. He takes the bundle, slowly opens the vault, and tosses the bundle in, several other bundles are already in there). He closes it and gives the camera a look like “I will die before anyone comes in here.”

We follow another bundle through the tubes as it lands on what looks like a field. Think agriculture. There is a creature with a huge hat on protecting him from the sun, we can’t see his face but a stem of grass is sticking out from beneath it (we assume his mouth). He’s got a hoe in his hands. The bundle falls into a pile (it looks like hay almost) and he picks at it and starts to spread it into the rows on the ground, like he’s farming the money. As we pull out we see the farm’s name is 401(k) or Retirement.

In another burst we see several bundles going out to gangster looking creatures who seem to be “paying off” several businesses (cable, electricity, internet). The bills are being taken care of.

Then the whole loud, fast production stops and we here the ding of the elevator. The doors open and out walks P, not a care in the world. His money is doing it’s thing, just like that.

RECAP:

The whole recap/feeling here (compared to the Coke ad) isn’t one of cutesiness (I’m considering using real people or animated people, at least, instead of “creatures or blobs”). The idea here is that, without actively doing anything, the money is being handled and distributed the way it should be: responsibly and in a timely fashion. Fast and with no input needed from the user.

It sets Bank of America up not only as a jack of all trades but as a place that makes it super easy for clients to set up whatever system they want and then forget it.

“Set it and forget it.”

Does this work? Would it be better with non-blobs/creatures? Is this too much like the Coke ad?

With this whole change to the new domain, time has been at a premium, but there is something I wanted to discuss today:

The possibility of drawing my own ads for my book.

Last week I talked about a Netflix ad (after many tries and much thought) that I really thought would work and was creative and original. The problem was, I couldn’t get a good visual to go with it. I’m not talking design or drop shadows or anything aesthetic like that, I’m talking a picture of a fat mailman looking down at the scale that’s reinforcing that he’s fat.

Just couldn’t find it.

I had kicked around the idea of drawing my own ads before, thinking that my portfolio would stand out from all the other polished, good-looking ones out there, which is good. But I also didn’t want to come across as lazy. I also didn’t want to make it look like I hadn’t tried hard enough.

So I abandoned the idea.

Last week I met someone that used to be a copywriter and he told me that it was a good idea. That that’s what he did and that it worked and that, when he hired copywriters, he focused on the concept and actually had some resentment towards polished books with mediocre ideas.

So not this idea is back in my head as a possibility. 

But the problems is still there:

Fat Mailman

I can’t draw.

The more I bang my head against the wall though, the more I’m liking this idea of putting together a book of really good ideas I really like and making visualizing them the precise way I have them in my head. Will they look as “good” as the polished books out there?

Of course not.

But, if anything, I’ll be the guy that the Creative Director is talking about when he says, “Hey Ted, you have got to get in here and check out the book this kid just sent in!”

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?

I hate having to do this again because it defeats the whole purpose, but no ad today for Ad Friday. Some things came up and a possible professional opportunity I had to prepare for (plus I couldn’t get my mind off it) so I didn’t focus on making an ad for today. The ideas are all there, but I didn’t want to put up a half-assed concept up for the sake of putting it up. My brainstorming has gone well though and that’s a positive.

But I would like to post a link to post a video of one of my all-time favorite commercials. It’s simple, the copy is brilliant, and it gets right to the core of the product:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekQ-oZX4ihM

It’s kind of a crappy snippet but it’s the best I could find.