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Commercials
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did the job in 2000
Clyde McKenzie - Contributor
The Sunday Gleaner
January 14, 2001 |
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Wicked
She, in her usual dramatic fashion, related the nature of the commercial, which, of course, caught my interest. I would soon hear from a number of persons about the "wicked Slam Condom" commercial and made sure that I would soon see it. |
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THIS TIME OF THE YEAR MANY OF US in the media assume the posture of the Roman god Janus, simultaneously looking onto the receding silhouette of a fading past while pondering the shimmering outlines of an emerging texture.
It is a time when we pay tribute to the achievements of a year gone and honour those who authored these accomplishments, the best and the brightest, whose brilliance illuminated the preceeding 12 months.
Every year at this time we await with trepidation that which fullows the repeated phrase, "and the wimmer is..." to determine who has been chosen from among the best.
In this article I look back on a piece of popular culture we call advertising and some outstanding examples of the craft. Many of us do not appreciate the skills often required for the mounting of a good advertising campaign.
A good commercial should grab one's attention and cause one to focus on the product, which it seeks to promote. Whether one will buy the product after seeing or hearing the commercial is an issue which is sometimes determined by other factors.
Last year, there were a number of commercials aired on Jamaican television, which grabbed my attention. The commercial which was perhaps most effective at capturing my notice was one done as a series to promote Slam Condoms, featuring a man whose mouth had escaped the description of toothless by one seemingly unstable outgrowth of enamel.
Here was a man who for many women would represent the antithesis of masculine sexual attention promoting a product intimately related to the act of lovemaking.
It was my sister, Sharene, who brought the commercial to my attention. In one of our usual discussions of things general asked me whether I had seen the latest
commercial for Slam Condoms. I had not.
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I was not disappointed. It was a most effective presentation.
Here was a commercial, which according to Bruce Hart, from Montego Bay, the man who shot it, cost next to nothing to produce. The man in the commercial, without prompting, had managed to provide what was an efective means of drawing attention to Slam Condoms with his dramatic and comic delivery.
This man, speaking about sex, provided laughter, as most people were simply incapable of seeing him as the object of any amorous favor.
Victor Wong, head of 'No Glove, No Love', the parent company of Slam Condoms, who is a former Madison Avenue advertising executive, must be commended, as too should Hart for mounting what for me was an impressive campaign.
Cable and Wireless scored big with their Keep In Touch commercial which had a lot of people talking, even if not mostly on the phone as might have been the underlying intention of those who procuded this spot.
The Cable and Wireless effort seemed to have required serious budgetary considerations, but the results clearly would have been worth the cost. This commercial appears to be very much like a music video, in terms of duration at least.
It is my estimation, though I have not timed it, that it is longer than the average television commercial, yet it manages to hold one's attention throughout.
I have no data to tell me how effective the airing of Keep In Touch has been, but if the familiar scenes of beggars and waifs toting cellular phones around the island is due in some way to the broadcast of this campaign, I would not be surprised.
Clearly this is not an exhaustive list of the commercials which I deem outstanding for the Year 2000. However, I will have to use another article to look at some of the other examples of the human imagination taking flight in small packages of sight and sound.
Here
here to go back to the commercials
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