Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - S11E25 - Ask Terry (2022)

Episode Date: June 25, 2022

This week, it’s our annual Ask Terry episode – where I answer listener questions. This year, someone wants to know which advertising category does the worst advertising, which celebrities were the most fun to work with and why the roads in car commercials are always so darn wet. You’ve got questions, we’ve got answers. 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. You're so king in it. 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.

When Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth in 1865, he was attending a play at Ford's Theatre. The assassination raised an interesting question. Why did Booth choose that moment? The play was titled Our American Cousin. It was a fish-out-of-water story about an unsophisticated American who goes to England when he inherits a family fortune. The American, played by actor Harry Hawks, is a bit of a backcountry hick who finds himself suddenly immersed in posh British society.

A scheming socialite who secretly despises him tries to convince him to marry her daughter so they can get their hands on the fortune. But the uncouth American is savvier than he looks and knows exactly what she's up to. When he confronts her about her greed, he says the line, I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal,

you sock-dologizing old man-trap? When that line was delivered, the audience exploded in laughter. If you don't find it particularly funny, well, you had to be there. Back in 1865, that was comedy gold. According to an excellent Washington Post article about that fateful evening,

the word man-trap was a bit naughty, and the word sock-dollager meant a truth delivered as a defining moment in a situation. And that's why the audience laughed so hard at that show-stopping line. That moment in Act 3, Scene 2 was the loudest laugh in the show. Loud enough to cover up the sound of a gunshot. Just moments before the line was delivered, John Wilkes Booth slipped into Lincoln's private box, unheard and unseen. Booth was a Confederate sympathizer.

The South had surrendered just five days before that, and he wanted to throw the government into disarray. So when actor Harry Hawks walked onto the stage all alone and said, I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal, you sock-dologizing old man-trap. The crowd erupted in thunderous laughter and Booth pulled the trigger on his Derringer pistol. Then Booth leapt from the box

onto the stage and shouted the Virginia State motto. The crowd thought it was part of the play. They had not heard the gunshot, just as Booth had planned. Then he ran from the stage, left the building,

and escaped on horseback. But the question remained. How did Booth know the loud laughter moment was coming? Well, there was a reason. John Wilkes Booth was an actor. He was in the business of knowing audiences. And he knew the play well.

Welcome to our last episode of the season. It's our annual show all about questions. And I'll try and answer as many of your questions as time allows today. We'll explore why car commercials always show wet streets. We'll chat about a certain beloved French fry commercial. We'll discuss my favorite commercial actors. And we'll talk about how advertisers are in the business of knowing audiences well. You're under the influence. Okay, on Facebook, Eileen asks,

Okay, where to start? Well, pharma ads are probably the worst. But that's partly because they are so heavily regulated. The only good pharma commercials I think I've ever seen were the Viagra commercials done in Canada a number of years ago. They were hilarious. You may remember the one where the guy skips and dances his way to work in the morning. Then, just as the commercial ends, he steps into an elevator, smiles directly at the camera, and a Viagra logo appears.

Good morning to you. I'd be just as hippie if it wasn't Mississippi. That smile said it all. As for other categories, I think lottery marketing needs some help. The commercials I see are boring and predictable, yet the idea of winning millions should be such fertile creative ground. Europe, on the other hand, does a lot of good lotto ads. One campaign I always liked had a funny theme,

that you have to know what you're getting into if you want to be a millionaire. One ad showed a guy running through a mansion. He runs down a long hallway. He runs through a huge dining room. He runs through a big billiard room. He runs through a huge library. Then he runs down another long hallway. Then suddenly, he stops. When he turns around, we notice he has wet his pants. That's the problem with mansions. It's a long way to the bathroom. Know what you're getting into.

Lotto, the biggest risk of becoming a millionaire. So funny. And a great lotto premise. On Instagram, Nikki A says, You've directed a lot of celebrities. Who was the best to work with and who was the worst? Okay, now you're trying to get me in trouble. The best celebrity I worked with was Bob Newhart.

He was kind and nice and was exactly the guy you've watched on TV all those years. And so, so funny. In that trademark quiet, understated way. Martin Short is a lot of fun too. In that trademark loud, overstated way. The worst celebrity experience is a difficult one to answer. Some celebrities come to the studio with an entourage, so it's an awkward recording session,

too many people milling around. Some celebrities try to intimidate everyone in the room to gain control. On the other hand, I've had big celebrities show up to the recording studio in Los Angeles on bicycles. No pretense, just looking for a place to park their bike. Probably the most difficult recording session I had was with the late, great Jonathan Winters. He was either in an ornery mood or was just having a bad day, but it didn't go well, and we ended up having to redo all the commercials with another actor. By and large, though, most talented celebrities were

very professional and a pleasure to work with. On a related question, PlanetJanet1 on Instagram asks, What makes great commercial actors great? Hi, Janet. Excellent question. The best actors I've worked with love to work, meaning they love to be in the studio, they love to roll up their sleeves, and they want to deliver a great performance.

The best actors are generous. They help the other actors in the commercial shine too. With comedic actors, my favorites were the ones who could make almost any moment funny. That's the difference between good actors and great comedic actors. A good actor can deliver a funny line, but a truly great comedic actor can make any line funny. Tom Sharp, the bald guy you saw in all those Goodyear and Fountain Tire commercials, could make any line funny.

He was that good, and he could ad-lib on the spot. Rick Moranis was great at that, too. Kathy Greenwood, who you may know from Whose Line Is It Anyway? and the comedy troupe Women Fully Clothed, is gifted like that, too.

Kathy can make anything funny. When she was in the studio, I knew my bacon was saved. On Facebook, Auntie Schmanty asks, one thing I've noticed over the last few years is the increased use of classical music in TV commercials. Any reason why? Well, Auntie Schmanty, whenever I chose classical music for a commercial, it was usually because that genre instantly lends a sense of class or sophistication to a product. As every director knows, music tells you how to feel. And there's another reason too. All classical music written by famous composers like Beethoven, Mozart, Wagner, etc. are all in the public domain.

So there are no royalties and no copyright issues. Lastly, there are many stock music libraries with hundreds of classical music tracks available, and they are all performed by huge orchestras. And you can license those tracks for just a few hundred dollars. But if you were to hire a huge live orchestra to re-record the classical piece, it would cost you thousands, and you would have to pay royalties to the orchestra. So pre-recorded, licensed classical offers a lot of benefits to advertisers. mhurst23 on Instagram asks, What is the number one trait that defines a great advertiser?

Guts. Pure and simple. Someone who has the courage to be bold in their advertising. A client who doesn't want safe and boring commercials. Someone who challenges their advertising agency to do smart, surprising work. And who doesn't peck the ideas to death. In my over 35 years in the ad biz, I had, maybe, a dozen of those clients. On Twitter, at Sturdy Hugh asks,

Which is more effective when used in commercials in terms of remembering a brand? Comedy or drama and emotional content? Well, Hugh, there is no one answer to that question. It's a case-by-case scenario. I would say most products lend themselves to humor.

From cars to underarm deodorant to fast food to cell phones, humor works for all those categories. The great thing about smart humor is that it can make an ad memorable and watchable. As I always say, humor is the shock absorber of life. On a related question, listener Tim Stevenson says he likes humor in commercials, but can humor go too far or be too obtuse? Absolutely. Humor can often miss the mark. Can humor go too far or be too obtuse? Absolutely. Humor can often miss the mark. When I advocate for humor, I mean smart humor.

That means you need a writer who understands humor, a client who is comfortable with humor, a director who gets humor, and actors who excel at humor. A lot has to go right to be genuinely funny. Now, using drama or emotion is another subject altogether. You have to be careful with that. The problem with drama is that it takes itself very seriously, so the product has to be able to live up to that. A dramatic ad for toothpaste can be a little too much, but an emotional ad for sneakers, when paired with a story of achievement, can be amazing.

Nike does that every time. A dramatic commercial has to induce emotion, not eye-rolling. It all comes down to how that product fits into someone's life, which means an advertiser has to be in the business of knowing their audience. Which reminds me of a certain McCain french fry commercial that made a lot of people smile. On Facebook, KMLegalHelp asks, What's that ad where the cute little boy is eating French fries so seriously and dipping them into the ketchup? How long did it take to film, and how many fries did he end up eating? Well, that was a commercial for McCain French

Fries from back in 1987. It's remarkable how well-remembered that commercial still is to this day, considering it's 35 years old. And the cute little kid in that commercial, who looks to be about 8 years old, would be in his 40s now. That ad was actually produced by a Boston-based advertising agency called Clark Goward Fitz. I asked creative director Jim Fitz how that commercial came to be. At that time, back in 1987, his advertising agency had small clients. That meant they didn't have huge production budgets that bigger ad agencies enjoyed. But Clark Goward Fitz had a philosophy. Simple strategies with simple executions. But simple didn't mean boring. It meant uncomplicated creativity. And as I always say, creativity loves constraint. Small budgets force interesting solutions.

So Jim assigned the job to the creative team of Mike Sheehan and Brian Aldrich. The advertising strategy was clear. Ask mothers to buy McCain French fries because kids love them. The idea that Sheehan and Aldridge came up with was the epitome of simplicity. Let's just film a typical kid enjoying the French fries.

That was it. Thankfully, McCain didn't have layers of approval processes back then. The ad agency presented the idea. McCain approved it. That would be pretty rare in the 21st century. So, a casting call was put out for eight-year-old kids. They each sat down in front

of a plate of french fries and were given a bottle of ketchup and a comic book to read. The camera simply rolled film as they ate. When the creative team looked at all the footage, they chose the little blonde boy with the big glasses. There was just something magical about that kid. The decision to just let the camera roll was the charm of the ad. All we see is a cute little kid putting ketchup on a french fry while reading a comic book, completely unaware of the camera. It was the simplest, least expensive commercial shoot possible. There wasn't even any dialogue. As Jim Fitz says, he hated fake sincerity in commercials.

The, hey mom, can we have some more of those delicious McCain French fries? That's a bad commercial moment that you see all too frequently. The only word spoken in the McCain commercial was a voiceover at the end that said, Super fries from McCain for the strong, silent type. So, to answer your initial questions, K.M. Legal Help, the length of time it took to film the commercial was simply the time it took the kid to eat a plate of french fries.

That's it. One take, one plate of fries. If you've never seen the commercial, you can find it on YouTube by searching

McCain French Fries Commercial 1987. On Facebook, Judy Christofferson asks, I have always wondered about car commercials where the drivers always seem to be driving on wet roads. I mean, A, why wet roads? And B, what do they call the crew person in charge of hosing down the road? A hoser? Only in Canada, Judy. Only in Canada.

Well, I asked my old friend Steve Chase that question. Steve is one of the top commercial directors in the U.S. who has directed hundreds of commercials, including Super Bowl ads, all those funny commercials, and dozens of car ads. First of all, Steve says most roads ain't pretty. Unless you're shooting on a newly paved blacktop, most roads are gray with patches and cracks and blemishes. But when you water a road down, all that disappears and the road becomes one uniform dark color. The slight gleam of a wet street also adds some drama to the shot. The camera loves wet streets.

But keeping a road wet is not easy. Steve says water evaporates very quickly on a road, especially during a sunny day. He says the water would often start to evaporate in 30 seconds. So, Steve would always have two water trucks on hand. Everybody on the set would have to be ready to go. Crew, actors, camera operator. Then the signal would be given for a water truck to wet the street. Then, almost immediately, Steve would call action. And with having to do multiple takes,

you do go through a lot of water. That's why two water trucks are required. And Judy, the crew in charge of watering the road down is from the art department, not hosers per se. On Facebook, PNW Traveler asks, Whatever happened to the free toys that you used to get with cold cereal, like decoder rings and invisible ink pens? It was Kellogg who created the very first cereal prize.

Back in 1909, kids got a booklet titled The Funny Jungle Land Moving Pictures Book just by sending in two box tops. That free giveaway was too successful, so Kellogg began charging a dime for the booklet. It was redeemed an amazing 2.5 million times, and Kellogg ran that giveaway for 23 years. Free toys inside cereal boxes became a very effective marketing strategy.

Get your free Dick Tracy Magic Decoder right away. There's one inside these special packages of post-sugar crisp, post-raisin bran, and post-sugar rice crinkles. But why did this effective marketing strategy stop? It seems there were two main reasons, safety and the Internet. Back in 1988, there was a choking incident. A three-year-old choked on a small toy in a Kellogg cereal. Even though it didn't result in serious injury, that news chilled the cereal industry,

and Kellogg initiated a recall of its free toys. Over 30 million had been distributed that year. Cereal makers then tried putting the toy in between the cereal bag and the box so it couldn't be poured into a bowl. Then they tried sealing the toy inside a bag inside the cereal. Eventually, the internet came along and provided a safer alternative. Cereal companies began giving kids a code they could use to access online games. But just when you thought free toys were a thing of the past, General Mills brought them back

last year. One million specially marked packages of cereals like Cheerios and Lucky Charms contained small spoons that changed color when dipped in cold milk. Proving history never says goodbye,

it just says, see you later. On Facebook, Chris Musial asks, You have mentioned that the Super Bowl is North America's most important single annual advertising event. The 2022 halftime show appealed to an atypical NFL fan base. What is the advantage to the NFL of trying to court a non-traditional fan base instead of rewarding the loyal fans with a halftime show they prefer? That's an interesting conundrum in marketing. Every company or organization needs to court and woo its next audience, meaning it has to attract a young audience in order to sustain itself. A company can't just cater to an older audience,

because there will come a day when that older audience isn't there anymore. And advertisers are most interested in a young target audience. But here's the tricky part. How do you attract a younger audience without alienating your existing audience? In advertising, you can often accomplish this with a media buy. You run commercials to attract younger viewers

in places where the older audience isn't, so they don't feel suddenly estranged. The coveted 18 to 49-year-old Super Bowl audience has declined since 2008. I suspect the NFL was looking to attract a younger audience with that halftime Super Bowl show. The rest of the broadcast was aimed at its existing audience. Two birds, two stones. On Facebook, Richard Romano asks, How come your show doesn't have more episodes per season? Why not run from September to June?

I'm sure that you have enough material! Well, I think there's a compliment in there somewhere. Well, Richard, our show runs from January to the end of June every year, but we start researching and writing the episodes in September. So even though you only hear us for six months, we are really working ten months a year on the show, with a hiatus to recharge our batteries and search for new stories during July and August.

But this summer, we have a special treat for podcast listeners. So check your podcast feed in July. Thank you for all the great questions and thank you to our listeners for all the wonderful support you give our show. We truly, truly appreciate it. Some of the questions you send in are actually great episode ideas, so keep your ears peeled next season.

This is the 11th season of Under the Influence and our 17th on CBC. I'd like to take a moment now to thank our amazing Under the Influence team who work their hearts out for you every week. Our incredible producer

who manages everything that happens in the Tearstream Mobile recording studio is Debbie O'Reilly. The man who makes us sound good is our chief sound engineer, Jeff Devine.

Those two wandering minstrels of our melody are composers Ari Posner and Ian Lefevre. It would be impossible to do this show without our remarkably resourceful researchers. They are Allison Pinches, Abby Forsythe, Patrick James Aslan, Terry O'Sullivan, and Susan Kendall. Our groovy graphic designer is Callie Rae O'Reilly. The lady who tells you that you're under the influence every week is Angela Bottas.

The lady who suggests you take a dive into our archives every week is Sydney O'Reilly. Our wonderful fun fact man is fellow Sudburyian Frank LaPrey. Last but not least, thanks to the folks at CBC. And CBC will be airing some archived episodes over the summer and will have a special treat in store for our podcast listeners too. Stay safe and have a wonderful summer. I'm Terry O'Reilly. Fun fact. This was the 243rd episode of Under the Influence.

Question. How many have you listened to?