Sure a lot of local commercials are absolute crap, but some of them can be quite engaging.
The creators of the commercial (and making of video) above are Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal, two self-proclaimed ‘internetainers’. Like Kevin Nalts, they have managed to make a good living creating entertainment and infotainment videos for the web. The two North Carolinians have created over 200 web based videos including some very successful marketing promotions such as The Alka-Seltzer Great American Road Trip. They certainly look like they enjoy what they do and I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before Hollywood comes calling.
Their most recent promotional adventure, I love local commercials, is sponsored by Microbilt a finance company that developed this promotion for small local companies encouraging them to enter a contest to win a commercial created by Rhett and Link. The promotion is coming to an end and there have been a lot of commercials created. Some of these are (c)rude, some are strange, some are funny and some are really engaging.
The Cullman mobile home commercial above features Robert Lee (no middle initials given), a no-nonsense business owner who says it like it is. This commercial is part reality TV, part parody, part local TV commercial and part documentary. It’s fascinating. I imagine it will make Robert and his mobile homes famous for a while and that will probably translate into more business.
The media have picked up on some of these videos and YouTube and other web hosting sites are seeing impressive take-up of this series. If you are interested in web hosting sites similar to Bluehost, you may want to read this thorough review of Bluehost or other similar sites.
Are the creators making fun of the people in these videos? Are we laughing with or at these people? Hard to say. Parody is funny that way.
One Response
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