Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Newscast... or Commercial?

WTSP in Tampa is getting a lot of flack for this:




Ken Tonning, general manager at WTSP, compared the spots to promotions anchors might record when a circus comes to town.

"We decided to partner with them in this event and wanted to do something a little different," Tonning said, noting the spot also highlights the station's ticket giveaway, which includes a grand prize winner who sits in the venue's press box. "I don't think there are any ethical issues."

You can read the entire article from the Tampa Bay Times here:

http://www.tampabay.com/features/media/news-anchors-monster-truck-tv-ad-puts-channel-10-in-ethical-jam/1210472

What do you think? Does this cross the line? Comment below.

4 comments:

Tim S. said...

I had to watch it a couple of times to understand what they were talking about it. I didn't care for the "fake newscast". I think it would of been better if they did an off to the side "behind the scenes" camera instead of making it look like a newscast. It's just going to confuse their viewers.

Anonymous said...

I'm never a fan of commercials that look like a newscast. I too, think it'll confuse people, at least at first.

The head-on 2 shot is probably not a good idea.

Anonymous said...

I had less of a problem with the fake newscast or any ethical issue...and more of a problem with just understanding what was being said or promoted...very confusing message. I'm all for creativity, but delivering the message has to be the top result...I'm not sure this does that...but then, I've laid my share of eggs over the years..lol.

Jerry said...

i think they did a good job of selling the newscast. pushing the website was a little weird, just too much thrown in the spot. could have used the time selling the ticket giveaway instead of confusing me by mentioning the website.