Everyday Canvas

Writers and TV Commercials

Prompt: What are your favorite TV commercials?

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Most of what we watch are on the DVR, which means we fast forward the ads or when we watch directly from the TV, such as during the news programs, I go do something else either on the computer or in the kitchen while the ad is on. At the moment, I can’t think of a recent TV commercial offhand, but several years ago, I had watched a TV commercial awards program; I think it is called CLIO. On that program, there was an honorable mention winner from Japan. I can’t recall the product they were advertising but it showed two little boys in a bathtub. One of them passed gas and the camera showed the bubbles from it rising to the surface of the water. I thought that was funny and cute.

TV commercials, even if they may annoy us like the AFLAC duck, are not that easy to make. They are quite important for us here because the companies employ writers to create storylines, either heartfelt ones or satirical and with a sense of humor. As in all fiction, the ads have a theme and a main character. The idea is to represent the brand clearly without cutting corners yet keeping it simple. For example, focusing on the image of a product can arouse more interest than burdening the viewers with lots of facts.

In addition, local commercials to save actor fees, opt to use the people who own the brand, but usually, those ads end up as being crude and silly. Still, the commercial ads people need to take into account the limitations of a small budget but try to not come up with fake-sounding and annoying commercials that resemble political campaign ads.