Thursday, October 11, 2007

When Good Ads Make Bad Sitcoms.

The "Cavemen" ad campaign for Geico car insurance was truly inspirational. Created by The Martin Agency of Richmond, VA, it was great as a :15 or :30 second chuckle. And it also proved that great creative advertising no longer has to come from the big cities.

The ad campaign also did the client a great service by leveraging itself further as an innovative media and creative research tool. Martin created "The Gecko", "The Cavemen" and several other very humorous TV campaigns and ran all campaigns, concurrently, on different media in different markets at the same time. They were able to test the effectiveness of the creative execution as they were airing them. A brilliant marketing move. I applauded loud and long.

However, the newly launched television sitcom "Cavemen" can't quite cut it. What's next, "The Gecko" cartoon show on Comedy Central? Good try, agency. Really, really would have been the bomb--had "Cavemen" not been such a bomb. You can't take a very clever 15 second idea and make it sing for 20 minutes (or more, depending on number of commercials).

It's just not that funny.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Anne,
Couldn't agree with you more on the Caveman show. Watched about a minute of the show and couldn't take it anymore.
Love your blog. Way to go.
KC

Anne Murata said...

Thanks for your comment, KC. There's so much screen choice available to consumers today, in so many media, that we have the ability to decide a new show's fate fairly quickly. It will be interesting to see how long "Cavemen" lasts.

Robyn said...

Aloha!

When a joke is analyzed and lengthened, it becomes a joke itself.

Cavemen and Carpoolers had an immaculate birth but overexposure and has overripen a very natural joke about discimination.

It also shows that ad excutives such as Joe Lawson should stick to 30 sec and not 30 min. Now stuck in a different world, Lawson and his staff are "retooling" the show.

In the midst of it all, I have noticed that TRS: The Real Scoop is more effective in reaching their target audience through famed fictional characters such as Fred Flintstone, Jed Clampett, and even a Cabbage Patch Kid.

Funny is funny when 30m is 30s.