Tale of Two Spots

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: Ah, screw it... the Ragu spot is gone again.

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE! The Ragu spot is now back... go figure.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, the link to the Ragu spot is dead. In the end, I think we are overly critical of news promos - but the Ragu spot was far superior to the WCBS one - as DigitalVic explained. Although I am not a huge fan of "testing" spots - I don't think its a bad idea to show them off to folks in accounting, the receptionist, etc to get a reaction. I'll have to blog about the hells of testing spots another day!

don


I'd like to share 2 black and white/photo spots with you today. One is for a newscaster and the other is a stealth ad for Ragu.





Now, I'll be the first to admit - I'm not a big fan of the WCBS spots and love the one for Feed Your Kids Well.

But why? Both are produced just about the same exact way. Both have somewhat cliche copy.

Could it be... SHOCK... I'm wrong? Is it possible viewers actually DO connect to the WCBS promos? Certainly, the Ragu ad features the innocence of childhood, which all of us can relate to. Kids are part of my "things we hold sacred" rule of promotion - its easy to make an emotional connection with children.

But my question to myself and all of you is - are we too jaded to see that the WCBS spots don't play well to TV people who've done this for years and years - but do actually play well to the general public?

Could my barometer be so far off... because I've seen so many promos in my career that this just seems like a bunch of crap? The minute the same exact style of spot is shown to me and its NOT for news - I lap it up.

It is easy to say, no - these WCBS spots aren't very good... but I think we should take into very serious consideration that we are not producing promos for ourselves but for the viewing public.

This is an example where I'm man enough to admit - I could be wrong.

Thoughts?