Is this really what they think we want?
I received my first complaint today for a piece of work I had written. RESULT!
Its like this. It was for a kind of upper middle class type car, often used by business people these days, or big family cars, maybe a family where the parents are reasonably well paid, sounds a bit like cloudy, or rowdy. Now, car ads make up a large portion of our advertising and none of them have anything more exciting than the make of car and price. And there are so many, finding a new creative angle is a bastard every month. So this particular dealer, that sounds a bit like howdy without the H, have a dead nice showroom with internet pcs, a coffee shop and so forth, so I decided to make this the feature the script was based around. Picture it, two guys discussing needing to get out and go car shopping but the Mrs will never allow it when there are shoes to be bought kind of scenario. Its crap and a total stereotypical misrepresentation of real life, you'd think listeners will appreciate it in the same way that they all appreciate mother in law jokes .. even if their own mother in law is really nice, dead or maybe they aren't married. The punchline of the script went similar to as follows (for legal reasons, I cant actually reproduce it)
Man: Lets go to the new car showroom on saturday!
Woman: (disappointed) oh
Man: there's a coffee shop
woman: Woohoo!
And that generated the following letter (edited and best read in a Dawn French style character):
I don't usually complain about this sort of thing but on this occasion I feel I should. I understand that your advert is encouraging people to visit your showroom, which is fine. However, I cringe when I hear how over excited the wife is when her husband informs her that there is a coffee bar there. I'm sure that many women would be insulted by the innuendo that women would need the temptation of a coffee bar to look around your showroom. personally I like XXX cars and would not need such a shallow temptation. Surely the coffee bar should be promoted as a perk for everyone.
Love it.
Its like this. It was for a kind of upper middle class type car, often used by business people these days, or big family cars, maybe a family where the parents are reasonably well paid, sounds a bit like cloudy, or rowdy. Now, car ads make up a large portion of our advertising and none of them have anything more exciting than the make of car and price. And there are so many, finding a new creative angle is a bastard every month. So this particular dealer, that sounds a bit like howdy without the H, have a dead nice showroom with internet pcs, a coffee shop and so forth, so I decided to make this the feature the script was based around. Picture it, two guys discussing needing to get out and go car shopping but the Mrs will never allow it when there are shoes to be bought kind of scenario. Its crap and a total stereotypical misrepresentation of real life, you'd think listeners will appreciate it in the same way that they all appreciate mother in law jokes .. even if their own mother in law is really nice, dead or maybe they aren't married. The punchline of the script went similar to as follows (for legal reasons, I cant actually reproduce it)
Man: Lets go to the new car showroom on saturday!
Woman: (disappointed) oh
Man: there's a coffee shop
woman: Woohoo!
And that generated the following letter (edited and best read in a Dawn French style character):
I don't usually complain about this sort of thing but on this occasion I feel I should. I understand that your advert is encouraging people to visit your showroom, which is fine. However, I cringe when I hear how over excited the wife is when her husband informs her that there is a coffee bar there. I'm sure that many women would be insulted by the innuendo that women would need the temptation of a coffee bar to look around your showroom. personally I like XXX cars and would not need such a shallow temptation. Surely the coffee bar should be promoted as a perk for everyone.
Love it.
posted by Peter Pan @ 3:28 pm
2 Comments:
At 4:00 pm,
Dannyboy30 said…
Oh dear god, dont tell me, she is some sort of militant feminist? I bet Rahcel will wet herself when she reads it :-)
Would they have been more impressed if it was a gay couple that had been talking?
At 9:49 am,
Roo Green said…
Someone took the time to write a letter saying that?!! (Dear Auntie Beeb, why oh why oh why must we constantly endure this...) You have waaay too much time on your hands if you write to complain about the gender issues in a car ad. Now must get back to my letter complaining that not all giants eat sweetcorn...
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