Thursday, July 30, 2020

Listen to your gut


I'm going to do something I haven't done in close to ten years. I'm posting a TV spot I wrote and actually got produced.

But before I unveil it, I have some qualifiers. I'm part of a league of older ad vets who marvel at what kids are posting today. Not only are they showing off their work, they're listing the 137 people who had a hand in their masterpiece.

Put simply, most of it is just not worthy of a brag. And, cards on the table, neither is what I am about to show you. But it's Thursday. It's been a long week. I'm still nursing a painful groin muscle pull. And at 44 years of age, who knows when I'll be able to post any new TV work.

More qualifiers.

This and the other two spots I wrote are PSAs. That's not to say that PSAs are obliged to be bad. But, as we all know production budgets on PSA are often the equivalent to the price of a new Hyundai Sonata.

Over and above that, when Dotsie (the Olympic athlete who heads up the organization and appears in the spot) came to me, the structure and the concept were already in place.

Furthermore, apart from my post production editing notes ("Make it slower and simpler"), I had no part in the production.

Oh and I barely made a nickel on the project.

Is this work going in my portfolio? No, it is not.

Nevertheless, all that said, I'm happy with the result. I think the spots make their point. And that they'll have an impact. Web traffic is already soaring.

Besides after a career of selling beer, banks, computers, shitty airlines, shittier cars and carbonated brown sugar water, it felt good to apply my skills  -- such as they are -- towards a good cause. I have a lot of ground to make up. And this was a good first step.



If you hunt around the interwebs, you can find the other two spots about going vegan and living dairy free.

While you do that I'm gonna fire up the grill. I've got a well marbled Tomahawk steak on the menu. Followed by a bowl of Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey ice cream.

I love those thick little chips of chocolate.


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