Local Spot Yields Refreshing Bit of Honest Advertising

If Your Ads Have Been Promising Spiritual Fulfillment Instead of Selling a Product, Watch This

Posted by Bob Garfield on 11.02.09

Local commercials are universally terrible for all the obvious reasons: low production values, bad writing and performance, no evidence of strategy, obnoxious proprietors basking in the reflected glamour of their mattress stores.

Title: Painfully Honest and Epic Mobile Home Commercial Marketer: Cullman Liquidation Center Agency: Rhett and Link

In short, Robert Lee looks as though he would hit you. But, you've got to hand him this: He's straightforward.

Furthermore, unlike most national advertising, they're not afraid to sell goods and services or to ask for our business. Yeah, they're shrill and abrasive, but they also often generate traffic and sales, which is probably more than you can say for, say, that gorgeous "All You Need is Love" BlackBerry campaign. (Why do the folks at Research in Motion -- and, by the way, HTC and Palm -- insist on promising creative and spiritual fulfillment when what they're selling is a Swiss Army Knife with a dial tone?) But we digress.

There are at least two guys who just love local commercials, or so we gather from their website, called ILoveLocalCommercials.com. They are named Rhett and Link, and -- sponsored by a small-business risk-management company -- they voluntarily produce spots for little companies that amuse them. One such was the Cullman (Ala.) Liquidation Center, an outfit that buys used mobile and modular homes, fixes them up and resells them.

Cullman Liquidation does not trade on the Nasdaq. No WPP agency has tried to win its business (although check back next Monday). It certainly has no media budget. But it does have a commercial, shot on a shoestring by Rhett and Link, with no production gloss but plenty of moxie.

The star of the ad is the owner, Robert Lee, a blunt, strapping character right out of reality TV. He'd fit in nicely on "Dog, the Bounty Hunter," and it requires no effort to imagine him standing on his porch, shirtless, waving something sharp or heavy against the strobe of C*O*P*S dome lights.

In short, he looks as though he would hit you. But, you've got to hand him this: He's straightforward.

"I'm not gonna waste your time; I'm gonna tell it just like it is. These are mobile homes, not mansions. They come in two pieces. If that's what you're lookin' for, that's what I've got. They're used. Some of them have stains. We cover that up."

Then Robert introduces his staff, who are also on the rough-hewn side. ("She decorates them. She sells them. These guys help me move them.") And then, just to establish himself as more than just an aloof TV celebrity, he tells us something about himself:

"A bouncer in Birmingham hit me in the face with a crescent wrench five times, and my wife's boyfriend broke my jaw with a fencepost. So if you don't buy a trailer from me, it ain't gonna hurt my feelings. So come on down to Cullman Liquidation and get yourself a home. Or don't. I don't care."

He don't care! And he probably ain't lying. And there's something weirdly attractive about that.

There's also something attractive about imagining at least one bull market in the advertising industry: CGA-plus for the Long Tail of enterprises hitherto priced out of the market by agencies and media. Robert Lee is apt to discover he can, for a very low cost, become the only celebrity in the central-Alabama used-trailer industry. And hundreds of thousands of proprietors just like him.

Rhett and Link, and their like, no doubt would be pleased to help. So look them up.

Or not. We don't care.

5 Comments

  By phillyoscar | Orem, UT November 2, 2009 03:27:04 pm:

Awesome. I might have to move to Alabama and buy myself a mobile home!

Seriously, I would argue that the key to this ad is not just its straightforwardness, but it's effective use of humor. Most local ads are straightforward and most attempts at humor are nauseating, but this ad has a perfect balance of each. The overall effect is a commercial that you don't mind watching a few times and, as you point out, characters that you want to hang out with on your front porch. Strangely, I've never been beaten in the face with a wrench and I am my wife's boyfriend, but I find more in common with this guy than I do all the "normal" people in nation-wide advertisements.

Some nation-wide ads could benefit from dropping the idolatry approach and adopting an honest consumers-as-equals stance.

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  By bmasters | Lawrence, KS November 3, 2009 01:47:18 am:

I give an A+ to Rhett and Link for actually producing a local commercial that doesn't make me nauseous. Local commercials are usually known for their cheap production value and absolutely annoying characters. However, these ridiculous commercials generate sales because of their abrasiveness. For example, Spangles commercials irritate me beyond belief, but the outrageous jingles stay in my head and make this fast food chain top of mind when I think drive-thru.
This commercial is to the point and has no fluff. Honest advertising comes few and far between but an honest local commercial like the one of the Cullman Liquidation Center can go a long way for business. In local markets, there may not be a ton of competition but it is still important to have a memorable campaign that drives sales. The honest and to-the-point attitude of Robert Lee, the Cullman Liquidation Center, will no doubt leave people with a better taste in their mouth than they usually have after a usual local commercial.

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  By athenacorp | Toronto, ON November 4, 2009 10:34:59 am:

These guys are hilarious. Check out the campaign they did for Alka-Seltzer last summer:
speedysroadtrip.com

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  By orlandi | FARMINGDALE, NY November 4, 2009 08:05:50 pm:

A wonderful, brutally honest (and hilarious) piece of work. I sense a reality TV show coming...

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  By bribri2783 | Albuquerque, NM November 6, 2009 10:15:23 am:

As Trey Parker and Matt Stone proved ten years ago with a bunch of cardboard cutouts and a profanity-soaked dream: Production value will never replace content value. Southpark is one of the funniest and most successful shows in history, and (in the early stages) it cost almost nothing to make. Everyone ooos and aaahhhs at whiz-bang million-dollar television commercials or big-budget primetime dramas with lots of explosions and boat chases, but without compelling content, it's all just glitter on a turd.

@brianmcmath

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