Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - Ask Terry (2024)

Episode Date: June 22, 2024

This week, we answer listener questions.We’ll talk about how bands create theme songs for TV shows and how much they get paid. We’ll go back in time and talk about that flirtatious couple from that famous Nescafe TV campaign. And we’ll explore why condom makers now market different sizes, when it used to be one-size-fits-all.What’s goin’ on there? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly. As you may know, we've been producing a lot of bonus episodes while under the influences on hiatus. They're called the Beatleology Interviews, where I talk to people who knew the Beatles, work with them, love them, and the authors who write about them. Well, the Beatleology Interviews have become a hit, so we are spinning it out to be a standalone podcast series. You've already heard conversations with people like actors Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, and Beatles confidant Astrid Kershaw. But coming up, I talk to May Pang, who dated John Lennon in the mid-70s. I talk to double fantasy guitarist Earl Slick, Apple Records creative director John Kosh. I'll be talking to Jan Hayworth,

who designed the Sgt. Pepper album cover. Very cool. And I'll talk to singer Dion, who is one of only five people still alive who were on the Sgt. Pepper cover. And two of those people were Beatles. The stories they tell are amazing. So thank you for making this series such a success. And please, do me a favor, follow the Beatleology interviews on your podcast app. You don't even have to be a huge Beatles fan, you just have to love storytelling. Subscribe now and don't miss a single beat. This is an apostrophe podcast production. Your teeth look whiter than no nose You're not you when you're hungry You're a good hand with all teeth

You're under the influence with Terry O'Reilly. Well, it's our last episode of the season already. We hope you've enjoyed the show so far. And as we do every year, we open the final show up to questions from our listeners. We've tried to squeeze as many as possible into this episode, and this year we got some of the best questions we've ever received. We'll talk about how bands create theme songs for TV shows and how much they get paid. We'll go back in time and talk about that flirtatious couple

from that famous Nescafe TV campaign. Remember them? And we'll explore why condom makers now market different sizes when it used to be one size fits all. You're under the influence. Let's go to our first question. Graham Cooper asks, What, if any, difference is there between the word new and the word improved?

We usually see those phrases as a tag team. Can a product be improved without it being tagged as new? Well, Graham, usually a product that has been updated and made better is labeled new and improved. Maybe new research has come to light or a new ingredient has been added or subtracted, all of which makes the product better than the original, hopefully. Sometimes the improvements are to reduce manufacturing costs or to increase shelf life, which is more of a company benefit than a customer benefit. According to the Canadian Ad Standards Organization, companies can only use the word new in advertising for one year. It appears there are no regulations regarding the word improved, but if a product claims to be improved, then the company must be ready to prove it has been improved. Otherwise,

it falls under false and misleading advertising. By the way, I wrote a TV commercial for Moosehead Beer once that touched on this very subject of new and improved. I've told the backstory before, but here it is again. The actor is the late, great Alan Arkin. Do I really need my shirts any whiter? Hmm? Do I really need a turbo anything? Must there be air pockets in my sneakers?

If something's new and improved, what was wrong with it in the first place? Why didn't they just say, don't buy this yet, we are going to improve it? That's why I like Moosehead. It's brewed by the original family, unchanged and unimproved since 1867. Which means, they got it right the first time. Moosehead, they should give seminars. Sometimes when something hasn't been improved, it's better.

Kim Allen Grant wrote to say, I'm always curious about the books you read. I'm hoping you can make a Terry's Book list of best reads. Love the show. Thanks, Kim. I actually do have a running Book list of best reads love the show. Thanks, Kim. I actually do have a running list of books I read for the show. If you go to my personal website, terryoreilly.ca, you'll see Terry's Book Club there. I list the most interesting books I've read to research the show, and I welcome suggestions from listeners. And you'll find the latest book I've written there too titled My Best Mistake about people who made catastrophic career decisions, but it ended up

being the best thing that ever happened to them. John Palmieri wants to know, what's the deal with real estate signs? Why do agents always put their pictures on them and what is the history of those signs? Actually, John, we did an entire episode on real estate advertising and answered that very question. Go to our podcast archives on any podcast app and search Selling the Dream Real Estate Advertising. It's from Season 6 in 2017, Episode 14. Evan Drury asks the funniest question of the day. He wants to know why they don't make mouse-flavored cat food. Hilarious. Good question. Well, there's chicken and fish-flavored cat food. Hilarious. Good question.

Well, there's chicken and fish-flavored cat food, but there just seems to be something so wrong about mouse-flavored cat food. But it is funny. That reminds me, years ago I wanted to produce a dog food commercial and blow a dog whistle throughout the entire ad that only dogs could hear. I imagined people sitting at home watching TV, the dog food commercial comes on, and their dog's ears stand straight up

every time the dog food commercial came on, as if the dogs were choosing that particular brand. Never got around to doing that. Alison Wallish in Fochuk has an interesting question. Do musicians market their songs for the opening credits of TV shows? For example, Friends, Big Bang Theory, all the CSI shows, etc. In the 70s and 80s, theme songs were made for shows. How do they approach all this? Well, Allison, I don't think bands actively market their songs for TV show themes. I think it's the other way around. TV production companies approach bands about using their songs

as theme songs. I asked my friend Trevor Morris about this. Trevor is an Emmy award-winning music composer down in Hollywood. He's written the scores and theme songs for many movies and TV shows. Trevor says that if a TV production company or studio is buying an existing song from a band, it can cost anywhere from $25,000 to $250,000 or a million dollars plus if it's a big hit from a big band, like, say, The Beatles or The Who. Who are you? The CSI franchise has used songs from The Who for a long time. Songwriter Pete Townsend says he doesn't regret licensing the songs at all.

As a matter of fact, Townsend believes the use of his songs on CSI renewed interest in The Who and allowed the band to start touring again. Then there is the matter of royalties. If a TV show goes into syndication and banks close to 100 episodes, music composers hit the motherlode. That means the show will probably run for years. Gary Portnoy, who wrote the theme song for Cheers, and Jonathan Wolfe, who wrote the Seinfeld theme song,

both earned enough money to retire early in their careers. The Barenaked Ladies wrote the theme song for Big Bang Theory. Here's an interesting story about that. Our whole universe was in a hot, dense state that nearly 14 million years ago, expansion started way back. The earth began to cool, the autotrophs began to drool, Neanderthals developed tools, we built a wall, we built a pyramid. Math, science, history unraveling the mystery that all started with a big bang.

Hey! As we've mentioned before, show creator Chuck Lorre had attended a Barenaked Ladies concert in L.A. one night, and lead singer Ed Robertson sang an impromptu rap about the origins of the universe. Lorre was developing a new sitcom called Big Bang Theory at the time, and in that moment, he thought the Barenaked Ladies would be perfect to write a fun theme song for the show. He contacted Ed Robertson in 2005, who wrote it in the shower one morning in about 15 minutes. Since the show was a big hit, and considering it's in reruns constantly, the Barenaked

Ladies have made big coin from that theme song. Ed Robertson has since said it changed his life more than any other song in the band's catalog. He said the song has been very good to his family financially and to his grandchildren's family financially, which suggests the royalties are huge. When former frontman Stephen Page left the Barenaked Ladies in 2009, he sued the band for his share of the song's royalties.

Page said he was entitled to 20% of the theme song royalties and revealed that he believed the revenue was in excess of, quote, $1 million. Big cash. For the final scene of the final episode of Big Bang Theory, the band recorded a simple and emotional acoustic version

of the theme. Our whole universe was in a hot, dense state than nearly 14 billion years ago. Expansion started, wait. The earth began to cool. The autotrophs began to drool. Neanderthals developed tools. We built a wall. We built the pyramids. Math, science, history, unraveling the mystery. That all started with a big bang. After 12 highly rated seasons, Big Bang Theory was over. But will live on for years.

Antoinette has a question. She would like to know if a radio station would ever refuse an ad because it is annoying and might cause listeners to change the channel each time the ad aired. Well, I reached out to two of my friends who used to work at one of the top radio stations in Toronto. Now, back in the 70s, the programming department of major radio stations had the power to turn down annoying commercials and would do so

almost every week and sometimes daily. The programming department is in charge of the on-air sound of the station, so they were incredibly sensitive to bad commercials.

Back then, they didn't even allow client-voiced commercials. They would insist on re-recording those ads with their DJ's voices. But then, in the late 70s and early 80s, the sales departments gained more control, and fewer and fewer commercials were turned down. It's continued that way today. Programming protests, but sales insist the ads be kept on the air. And listener complaints rarely make a difference, by the way. The only reasons to pull a commercial today are ads with bad sound quality, which is never tolerated, or because of an official complaint from the Ad Standards Council.

Richard Hart wants to know this. Has anyone been terminated from an ad campaign due to an acting role they took? Hmm, good question. I can't think of any commercial actor who was fired because of a TV or movie acting job they took on, but actors do get pulled from commercials every now and then. An actor here in Canada who was the spokesperson for a beer brand was arrested on child porn charges. Needless to say, he was fired and his ad campaign was yanked off the air immediately. I was directing commercials for a financial company and their spokesperson was a certain celebrity. That celebrity got into big legal trouble back in 2015 and was arrested. The next time I directed one of those commercials, the celebrity was no longer the spokesperson. For some really good spokespeople gone rogue

stories, take an archive dive and listen to Season 8, Episode 1 from 2017. Spokespeople can give a brand power, but what's the story on those brand power TV commercials? Before we get back to our show, I want to give you a little taste of a But Wait, There's More bonus episode that's available now. A lot of work goes into the sound design of an episode of Under the Influence,

and in this special episode, our chief sound engineer, Jeff Devine, explains how he makes us sound so good. It usually takes about two hours to record the show and listen to it back. If there are any flubs or lines we want to change, I'll record what we call pickups or re-recordings of those lines and tack them onto the back end of the recording session so Jeff can find them. Now that I have Terry's audio, the real work can begin. Terry will send me the session he records in. He too uses the program Pro Tools. His audio will be completely raw, meaning unedited and unprocessed, just straight

from the mic. I must say that I absolutely love sound designing. Before podcasting, I worked in film and commercial, where sound design was such an intricate part of my work. And I'm so happy I get to sound design with the Apostrophe Podcast Network, because they absolutely love it, and it becomes such an intricate part of all of their shows to varying degrees. So let's get into what it takes to sound design a specific episode here. To hear more of that bonus episode, just search Under the Influence on Apple Podcasts and enjoy a seven-day free trial. By subscribing, you'll get more bonus episodes, early access to all of our shows, and ad-free episodes and archives. Plus, you support this podcast and help us to keep producing episodes, and we appreciate it.

Nikki from Paris, Ontario asks, I've seen those Brand Power commercials for years on TV. What the heck is Brand Power? Hmm, good question. Brand Power is an advertising agency that operates in 50 global markets. Interestingly, when I asked a half-dozen top advertising creative directors about Brandpower, they were all completely familiar with it, but no one really knew anything about it. And neither did I. On its website, Brandpower says it is a leader in what it calls

the, quote, third-party advertising industry. The company was founded in 1988 in Australia. Their website is interesting. It says the company was conceived as an advertising agency with unique intellectual property in the form of TV commercial mastheads. By mastheads, I interpret that to mean the ads are framed with the red Brandpower masthead logo and imagery. And inside those commercials, the spokespeople promote different brands. And they present as an unbiased third-party voice. The website goes on to say the mission of Brandpower is to, quote, provide brands with a third-party voice to enable predictable, measurable, immediate sales

by educating consumers on the rational product features and benefits. The Brandpower website also says that it helps the public find out all the facts without the spin before they buy. The Brandpower tagline is helping you buy better. Yet, I assume their business model is to have those brands pay them for the airtime. I reached out to Brandpower to ask that question,

but they never responded. The website also makes a big point of saying that 75% of award-winning commercials don't work. A bold statement, also inaccurate. There was a landmark study done in 1990 that asked, do award-winning commercials sell? The results showed that 80% of award-winning ads met or exceeded the client's stated goals. And by the way, only 1 in 7,000 ads wins an award. of award-winning ads met or exceeded the client's stated goals. And by the way, only one in 7,000 ads wins an award.

Be that as it may, the BrandPower website is also vague on how it works or how much brands pay to be in BrandPower commercials. But here's the interesting thing to me. BrandPower is owned by WPP, one of the largest advertising holding companies in the world. It owns dozens of advertising agencies, including Ogilvy and Mather. The WPP network is a big supporter of advertising award shows. Just a couple of years ago, WPP was named the ad industry's most creative company of the year by the Cannes International Advertising Festival, which is the premier advertising award show in the world. The festival gives out trophies to the ad agencies and brands that produce the most creative advertising. And that year, 2021, WPP companies had won a total of 190 awards.

It costs anywhere from €630 to €2,600, or the equivalent of $3,800 Canadian dollars, to enter a single commercial or print ad into the Cannes Awards show. 30,000 ads are entered in the festival every year. It's a serious investment for ad agencies. And a hefty percentage of them come from WPP companies, given that it operates in more than 110 countries. Clearly, awards are very important to WPP.

So, brand power is an interesting flower in the WPP bouquet. It maintains that 75% of award-winning ads don't work, yet it is owned by one of the most award-winning ad companies in the world. It kind of reminds me of Colonel Tom Parker. He distributed buttons that said, I love Elvis, and also buttons that said, I hate Elvis.

He was trying to corner both ends of the market. Todd Goulding asks a saucy question. Why do condoms come in many sizes? Years ago, it was one size, and I never heard anyone complain. Okay, well, Todd, let's take a look at how Trojan markets its products. On its website, Trojan says it now makes condoms in several different sizes. Clearly, condom makers realized that by offering more choice, they could generate more profit. So, how do you know which size is right for you? Well, Trojan has a handy video on its site to help with that question.

Dare we play it? Why not? Grab your tape measure because today we're teaching you how to measure your banana. Please note your banana will need to be ripe to take these measurements. That's a very important step. For length, start by putting the end of the tape measure against your stomach at the base of your banana and measure out to the farthest point of the tip to the nearest one-eighth of an inch. I think you get the idea. It's an amusing video.

According to Trojan, condoms come in the classic shape, the flared or baseball bat shape, the large bulbous end, and the super bulbous end, which just sounds alarming. They also come in ribbed, studded, and smooth, and can create a warming or cooling tingling sensation, and some come in flavors. You can buy a variety pack that gives you four different shapes to try, and there's a place on the website where you can sign up for discounts, and Trojan has a newsletter called Dirty Talk.

And by the way, condoms are nothing new. They were depicted on hieroglyphics dating back to ancient Egypt. According to ABC News, Europeans like their textures and shapes a bit racier. Brazilians and South Koreans seem to prefer flavored condoms. The Chinese are the heaviest users. And here in North America, Walmart sells the most condoms. Who knew? Kevin Marshall writes,

Do you remember the flirtatious couple in that series of ads for Taster's Choice Instant Coffee back in the early 1990s? Wasn't that from the UK? Yes, it was. Kevin goes on to ask, Why did the ads in North America appear to be for Nescafe Gold, using the same actors? That series was so engaging. Very true, Kevin. That series of ads with an ongoing storyline

was immensely popular. Over in the UK, the ads were for Nescafe Gold Blend. Here in North America, that same coffee was actually called Taster's Choice. And yes, they redid the campaign with the same actors here, only without the British accents. For those who don't remember this campaign, let me top you up. It originally ran in the UK from 1987 to 1993. The first commercial in the series had two people

meeting for the first time. An attractive woman walks across the hall and presses her handsome neighbor's doorbell. Hello. I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm having a dinner party and I've run out of coffee. Come in. Thank you. He seems delighted to meet her and offers some gold blend coffee. Will gold blend be too good for your guests? Oh, I think they could get used to it.

It's a very sophisticated coffee. They have very sophisticated taste. Later at her dinner party, she is asked... Have you met your new neighbor yet? Oh, I've popped in for coffee. It was the beginning of a storyline where the two neighbors would flirt with each other. In the second ad, our handsome neighbor is having lunch with another woman when his doorbell rings again. Excuse me.

You saved my life the other night. The dinner party? The coffee. Very successful. How can you ever thank me? I'll try and think of something. In the meantime, at least, I can return your gold blend. Look, I'm in the middle of something right now, but perhaps... Perhaps?

Ah, the romantic tension builds. Does he already have a girlfriend? Will the neighbors ever get together? That cliffhanger drove the campaign. In the next ad in the series, handsome man is late for a dinner party, and to his surprise, his attractive neighbor is one of the guests. Are you always this late? I won't be tomorrow. What's happening tomorrow? I'm inviting you for Well, well, we seem to have a date planned. In the next ad, handsome man rings attractive lady's doorbell, and another man answers.

Uh-oh. I'll get it, shall I? Hello. Good evening. Do you want the lady of the house? Uh-oh. Then Attractive Lady asks, In the next ad, we discover who that is. I called around last night when you had company. You mean my brother? Came around for coffee.

In part seven, handsome man and attractive lady finally share their first kiss. In part eight, they break up. In part nine, there was the appearance of another mystery woman. Then, after the campaign had been running for five full years and 12 installments, the series finally ended when Handsome Man sees her on a date with someone else and pulls her away. I don't know why I let you do that. Because I... You serve better coffee. Besides, I love you.

With those three magic words, the campaign was over. The next day, the front page of a British newspaper proclaimed, viewers finally hear the three words they've been waiting for. The campaign was so popular, books, CDs and other tie-ins were created. And every conversation in those commercials was had over a cup of Nescafe. Golden roasted, richer, smoother, Nescafe Gold Blend. When the final installment aired in 1993, over 30 million people watched it. That's how invested people were in this campaign.

Did it work for Nescafe? It sure did. Sales shot up 50%. It really was a masterclass in ongoing commercial storytelling. And very few commercials today ever try it. In 2008, it was voted the most romantic advertising campaign of all time

by the UK public. Still loved and remembered after 20 years. And by the way, the handsome man in that campaign was actor Anthony Head, who just played Rebecca's evil ex-husband Rupert Mannion in none other than

Ted Lasso. The guys got range. Well, that's a wrap on our 2024 season. Hope you enjoyed it. But we want to let you know we'll be posting some very interesting bonus podcasts from now until we're back in January. In those podcasts, I'll be doing interviews with some very interesting people, and we'll have a special summer series for my fellow Beatle fans. You won't want to miss that. Before we say goodbye, I want to thank our amazing Under the Influence staff. They work so hard to bring you the show every week. And thank you to CBC for the last 19 years. Next season will be our 20th on CBC, and we have a special season planned,

and we'll be doing a live audience recording to celebrate that milestone, so stay tuned. Until then, have a safe and fun summer. I'm Terry O'Reilly. This episode was recorded in the Terrastream Mobile Recording Studio. Producer, Debbie O'Reilly. Chief Sound Engineer, Jeff Devine. Researchers, Patrick James Aslan, Allison Pinches, Abby Forsythe, and Angus Mary. Social Media Team, Sydney O'Reilly

and Callie O'Reilly. Under the Influence theme by Ari Posner and Ian Lefevre. Tunes provided by APM Music. Follow me on social at Terry O'Influence. This podcast is powered by ACAST. See you soon. Hi, this is Patrick James Asselin.

I'm a researcher on Under the Influence. Fun fact. Did you know there are over 350 episodes in our archives to binge on? Happy listening. to a food bank. And these dimes represent visits by people you may even know. Now, here's Alarming, isn't it? But you can help. Every dime you donate to Feed Ontario will help Feed Ontario support more than 1,200 food banks and hunger relief organizations.

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