Working in various agencies (and freelancing) in a smaller market like Ottawa, you get your share of bizarre or disturbing clients coming through the door — like the guy who wanted me to brand a porn version of Netflix, or the domain registration entrepreneur who asked me to create an ad that had a 100% chance of getting publicly banned. But even though I've seen my share of hair-brained entrepreneurs, I've never had to do an ad that would cause me to hang my head in shame.
Which is why I was so curious about the online infomercials featured in Huff Post's The 15 Stupidest Products of All Time. Some I had seen before, like the Tiddy Bear, although I had always assumed it was a joke:
Related products, like the Kush Support, are too dumb to be made up:
And yet others, such as the Aspray and Comfort Wipe, are just plain gross:
But as amusing as these are, you still have to stop and think of the incredible amount of work it is to shoot a TV commercial. I just got home from a shoot in Montreal for a real client. But no matter how ad-hoc or low budget the production, several teams of people still had to sit around through pre-production meetings, video shoots, and offline approvals trying to maintain straight faces while talking about boobies and butts, jiggles and stinks. It must've been like a Kindergarten playground.
How do they do it? One can only assume alcohol is involved, but how depressing would it be to meet with a Creative Director and show her a reel like this? Hell, if you showed her your award-winning work for The Back Up, she might even back slowly away and call security.
So my question is, are there any adpeople out there who have actually worked in the infomercial genre? And how's that working out for you?
Never made an infomercial but I think it's time I did! But first I need to get The Back Up, so when people come to kill me for crimes against advertising I'll be ready.
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