J: Hello everybody. Welcome to Straight Shot. I’m Jennifer Bennett and with me as always is my lovely assistant, the lovely Zachary Bennett.

Z: Hi there.

J: We are here today to discuss something very important that I’m sure all of us took part of this past weekend. That is of course the viewing of the Superbowl. We always make it a tradition every year to have a Superbowl party where we enjoy family and friends. We sit around and we watch T.V. We eat food and wait until the game is over so that we can watch the commercials. That’s what we do because we like the commercials.

Z: For the last several years, we have had a tradition of having a company party where everybody gathers around to watch the commercials during the Superbowl. The game comes on and that’s when everybody goes to the bathroom and refill snacks. Then, we all come back to watch the commercials. We would tweet along our thoughts to the commercials in real time. This year we decided to not do that. We still had the get together, but we decided to save our thoughts for this podcast.

J: This year the Superbowl was hosted in Atlanta in the Mercedes Benz Stadium.

Z: We all stayed in our houses.

J: We tried to stay away from Atlanta. I have to give Atlanta mad props because I heard that the traffic situation was all very well managed by the people of Atlanta. Everyone was very friendly and welcoming. The weather was amazing. We literally had a break from rain and cold weather to have just an absolutely stunning weekend.

Z: You can never trust the weather in Atlanta though because just three days before we were supposed to have snow.

J: Yeah, schools shut down and it ended up being a 50 degree, sunny day. Our kids were running around in circles banging into each other at the house.

Z: I am glad we weren’t in Chicago because they did get bad weather.

J: 16 degrees, shout-out to my Chicago people. So sorry about you, you should move. I flew south for the winter and just stayed. It took place in Atlanta. The two teams that battled it out were the Los Angeles Rams and the New England Patriots.

Z: What a surprise that they were in the Superbowl.

J: I know. Tom Brady, what? Anyways, I’m going to reserve all of my comments about Tom Brady to myself. He is not my favorite player. I’d like to ask you, Zachary, what your opinion on the game was? I mean there was a football game happening between all these commercials. There was also a halftime event with Maroon 5 with special guest Travis Scott and Big Boy.

Z: I actually started watching football as a sport late. A friend of mine from an agency I worked at invited me to come over and start watching football with him. I’m a musician by trade specifically back when I was younger. When I first got into marketing and advertising, I still had the whole anti-sports thing going on. Back in the 80s, I was not in the jock click for those of you that knew me back then. I did not watch sports. I considered it a complete waste of time. However, he was a big football fan. He invited me over to spend time with him and watch football. He explained the game to me which I then gained appreciation for the sport. My son is really into football, so he and I watch it together. I used to watch it with my dad. It’s definitely something that we do together as a family watching football for several hours on the T.V. As far as my thought for the game, any time there is a defense-oriented game, it seems to drag on and on. Your celebration and your touchdowns are very limited when nobody scores.

J: It was the lowest scoring game in Superbowl history.

Z: Maroon 5 was winning in score because at least they had 5 for most of the game. As far as the halftime show, I know a lot of people are comparing it to Prince’s show. Comparing it to Prince’s show is not fair. They did a fine job for the halftime. I do think that it was not overexciting, but he was under a ton of pressure. He was not the first choice to be in the Superbowl.

J:  He wasn’t even the second choice, not even the third choice.

Z: A lot of people kept giving them static the entire time for saying that they would do it. Now, the Superbowl is always a great thing for whatever act gets to play for the Superbowl halftime show because it boosts awareness among different generations. Sales always goes up for whoever the band is. They did by the way.

J: Album sales for Maroon 5 increased by 400%. Travis Scott’s went up 200%. Then, Big Boy went up 150%.

Z: It was still very successful for them. Was it exciting, did Janet Jackson have a wardrobe malfunction?

J: No, but Adam Levine actually did have a wardrobe malfunction.

Z: Now he’s getting static for that. The biggest issue why no one would do it is because they wanted an Atlanta artist to do it because we have a lot here.

J: We are the hub for Hip Hop.

Z: We are. There are a lot of people that are from here. None of them would do it because of the Kaepernik controversy. Because we are a center for Hip Hop, nobody wanted to touch it. Maroon 5 had things stacked against them, but I think they did well. I didn’t know he could play guitar that well.

J: One of the other things that’s interesting to note is Gladys Knight came out and sang the national anthem. People on social media were bold enough to give her static for her choice to come on and do the national anthem. She got right on social media and turned it around and blasted them. She donated a bunch of money to certain charities. Maroon 5 and Travis Scott together donated a million dollars. The artists don’t actually get paid to do the Superbowl. They just get recognition and a bump in sales. They did dedicate a million dollars from their bump in sales to charity. It was his way of paying it back. A week before the Superbowl, radio shows talk to the halftime show act. It gives the artist an opportunity to plug the event and hype everybody up to drop hints on what some surprises might be. It’s quite an anticipated thing for radio stations in the area because it also pushes radio stations.

Z: There are all these people that get to have segments on their radio shows.

J: They get to bump elbows with the celebrities and find out about the secret stuff that might be happening. Because of the controversy surrounding Maroon 5, they actually cancelled Radio Row for this Superbowl. I don’t know why.

Z: I think that it was already hard enough to get an act to agree to do the show. They didn’t want to tempt fate by having them ask these questions right before the show.

J: They are just going to be bombarded by opinions and people asking about how they feel about Colin Kaepernik. How do feel about the boycott and how could you. God forbid, you have a radio host that heavily verbally assaults Maroon 5 right before they take the stage. I think they tried to avoid all that by side stepping it. That’s actually a big deal here in Atlanta. It was pretty radio silent before which led to people hyping Maroon 5 in their heads thinking there’s a lot of mystery surrounding Maroon 5 since they didn’t give anything away. Maybe something huge will happen.

Z: It was a straight show.

J: I was referring to it as a Lack-Luster Bowl instead of a Superbowl because there really wasn’t anything super about it.

 

11:52: Superbowl as a business and Product Placement

Z: The thing about the Superbowl that a lot of people don’t know is the Superbowl is 100% business from the people who go to the stands to the press junket with all the teams before they are there.

J: Yeah, downtown Atlanta itself is a giant canvas of advertising. Buildings had projections on top of the buildings of the different football players. They had advertising for Bud Light which basically took over one of the buildings in downtown Atlanta. Product placement was abound. It is worth it to note that the number one sponsor of the Superbowl is Pepsi. They actually changed Atlanta’s Coca-Cola city into Pepsi.

Z: We will talk about that because we are going to go over one of their spots. Atlanta is Coca-Cola town. They came in with guns blazing.

J: There was product placement for Pepsi all over Atlanta. It was really something to see.

Z: We’ll talk about that a little more, later. There is a lot of business that is generated around the Superbowl which is why everybody wants to have it in their city. I think from a customer service perspective, Atlanta did pretty well. There were a lot of issues politically with the bands being here. A lot of people didn’t like the people chosen to play and how they got there. We’re not going to talk about all of the conspiracy theories behind that.

J: It’s really hard for me to talk about Tom Brady and still be a classy lady because I have a lot of things to say that are not classy.

Z: Some people are big Brady fans, you know that right?

J: Apparently, yes. I know Gisele is one of them.

Z: Not everybody can beat Peyton Manning and have his personality. He had a spot.

J: Peyton Manning should always have a spot. I enjoy anything with Peyton Manning in it.

14:16: Superbowl Commercials

Z: Let’s get to the advertising shall we. We talked about Christmas advertising a while back. In that episode, I let you know what certain seasons in advertising that we see in common. One of them is football season. The finale to that is the Superbowl. The Superbowl has always been a big advertising time frame because it was the one time of year that millions of people watch the same show on the same channel at the same time. That’s how it became such a big thing for advertisers. What was it, ten million views? The Superbowl is one of the highest shows of the entire year. Over the last several years, advertisers took advantage to unveil their big guns. These are our new commercials, our big commercials. They would launch campaigns and try to shock people. They spend a lot of money on T.V. advertising for that night because so many eyeballs were watching the show. Back when T.V. was the number one mode of advertising, it was a big deal. That tradition still lasts. This week when we saw the Superbowl, we saw a lot of the same sort of big budget, highly creative spots. We are going to review some of them. We’ll go over the top 5, but I’m going to play 6. Let’s go ahead and watch through the first one shall we?

J: Let’s do it.

Z:  The first thing I want to mention before we get into this is bonus content on the Straight Shot app. We have a list of all the spots that played. We’re not going to go over all of them. Even in that list, I did not mark down the ones that were filler. What I mean by that is this every time you see a commercial on a T.V. station that is for the T.V. station, that’s a spot they couldn’t fill. If they could not sell a commercial to an advertisement, they will fill it with their own. This is because they still have to have enough spots to have the full content. Every time you saw an ad for a T.V. show that lets you know that is a filler spot because they could not sell that airtime. I did not include those in my recount of everybody that was playing. Again, bonus content if you want to download our app, you can go to the bonus content that is on there. You are welcome to look and see all of the different ads that played. Let’s talk about the first one that I saw that impressed me: the Walmart ad that was all the 80s movies cars. We are not going to show that one. That was the first one that struck me as being creative during the show. It was obviously targeted towards our demographic. It was very well done. It was the long version, but they chopped it up into little pieces which you see all the time now. The first one that really got me going was a surprise. It has a twist. Let’s go ahead and look at it. Then, we’ll talk about it.

20:12: First Superbowl Commercial Explained

Z: I spent the first half of this commercial thinking that we have seen this. The good commercials haven’t started yet. Then, the Bud Knight loses and you wonder what just happened. Then, you hear the Game of Thrones theme music in the background. You are wondering what is going on.

J: Picture Zachary’s eyes getting wider and wider as he starts to hear the theme song in the background.

Z: This was not a spot for Bud Light. This was for the coming season for Game of Thrones. It was co-branding which is brilliant. The twist at the end is that you think it’s a beer commercial and it’s not. It was absolutely great. For all of us that are excited for Game of Thrones to come back, it was epic.

J:  You totally geeked out to the point where a grown man was clapping in the living room.

Z: The co-branding aspect of that was brilliant. From a monetary standpoint, the dragon has already been made for the show. The setting for the Bud Knight commercial was already built because they have used it before, so there was no additional money for that. This was just smart thinking by bringing those two worlds together for that spot. I thought it was brilliant, even though I don’t even like beer. I do love dragons, but I don’t like beer. Traditionally, because of the high male demographic of football beer companies’ advertising really shines during the Superbowl. Budweiser has been extremely good at Superbowl ads. They shoot everything around the Superbowl and then play the remaining for the rest of the year.

J:  They went all out this season for their commercials.

Z: The second one that I want to play is actually another beer commercial. It’s been a few days since the Superbowl so I have had the opportunity to ask people about what they think about the Superbowl commercials. I’ve had a couple of days of people talking about the spots. This is one of the ones that people came up to me and started talking about it. Let’s watch it and then we will go through it after that.

 

24:49: Second Superbowl Commercial Explained

Z: This spot had lots of things going for it as well. It was a continuation of the whole Bud Knight World. It also was very Monte Python in its nature. This is the anniversary of Monte Python. It had humor and it put out the health concerns of other manufacturers. There was a lot of shade that was thrown in these spots.

J: We are talking about mudslinging because they were calling them out by name.

Z: That was very interesting that they did that. The aftermath of the spot was no press is bad press. The corn farmers got upset that they pointed out that it was corn syrup instead of saying sugar. They got a little upset, but I think it’s a memorable spot.

J: I like that the Bud Knight keeps getting struck by lightning. I also like that in the very beginning, it was mentioned that they would eat the old wizard first if they could. If you notice, everybody dies except for the old wizard. He is the only one that makes it at the end. It’s pretty cool.

Z: Let’s move along to one that’s a little more wholesome, but still fun. Speaking of anniversaries, this is the 100th anniversary of the NFL. They had their own ad in the middle of the show which I thought was very good.

J: It’s one of my favorites.

Z: We’ll watch that and then we’ll talk about it.

 

29:24: Third Superbowl Commercial Explained

J: I loved that ad. I think it’s so great.

Z: The thing that was really great about this spot is that it was very NFL family oriented. You saw new players and old legends. I think it was really well done. It was feel-good and true to the love of the game. They even included the young lady in it.

J: It was so great. It was old and it was new. It was boss. You had mentioned how it starts off pretty dry and pretty straightforward. Then all of the sudden, the loose ball happens. When the loose ball happens, everybody loses their minds. At no point, does anybody get upset about the wreckage that’s happening.

Z: That’s because they all want to do the same thing.

J: It doesn’t hurt that “It Takes Two” is playing in the background. It makes you want to get up and dance. It would be even cooler if they had the Superbowl Shuffle playing in the background. I’m a Chicago girl, so I really enjoyed that one.

Z: It was good.

J: It was unexpected.

Z: It was true to the NFL brand and was very well done. I really enjoyed that one as well. Now, let’s talk about one of the more sensitive ads that were there. This one was mentioned to me in the last couple of days by a client of mine. We were talking about a video shoot that we have coming up that is going to be similar in nature as far as being emotional. She had referred to this Superbowl ad. Let’s go ahead and play that and we’ll talk about it as well.

 

32:39: Fourth Superbowl Commercial Explained

Z: The thing that really stands out to me about this ad is that it wasn’t a traditional, company cell phone ad.

J: There were no cell phones used in the making of this advertisement.

Z: It wasn’t all about the minutes or how good our company is or anything like that. This was about how they are underneath the surface of people’s lives. People’s lives matter. Whoever signed off on this being their Superbowl commercial was brave because it’s not like the other ones. I think that because of that it makes a very strong statement. It aligns themselves with civic first responders that are out there laying their lives down. The other thing from a creative standpoint about this is the director and agency that put this spot together. They knew what they were doing and the main talent in it didn’t. They sent him to talk to first responders because of his own story. He did not know that the first responders from his specific incident were going to be there. He was going out doing community service and telling these people thank you for doing your job because somebody like you. Then, the responder turns around and says “Not somebody like me, it was me.” And that made him cry and that was brilliant. They captured it all on film. Being able to capture that moment was very well done. It was very insightful. Good job on that one. What did you think?

J: I think Verizon chose to think outside the box with their marketing. There is nothing wrong with low hanging fruit. We’ll have a cell phone commercial about minutes and coverage and we’ll slam Sprint. I mean that’s pretty low hanging and pretty inside the box. For Verizon to understand that this was the Superbowl of commercial advertising. They used their marketing dollars wisely. There are companies that spent lots and lots of money on celebrity endorsements regularly. What is going to make the money that they invest in this particular season worth it? How many times have you seen a Superbowl commercial that is something that has already been shown before? That’s a lot of money to spend on something. I think that Verizon did a really good job trying to think outside the box and make their marketing dollars go farther. The commercial impacted people in an unexpected way. The message was quite clear that they aren’t just talking about how important Verizon is, but how important answering the call is. With everything that’s been going on with the wildfires in California, front responders are on the front of everybody’s mind these days. I think capitalizing on that is something that unifies us as a people with all the divisiveness that’s been happening we can appreciate first responders, firefighters, paramedics, and police officers. It was a wonderfully subtle, very impactful way to do so.

Z: Cell phones have been getting a lot of static. They have been under a lot of fire lately because of the Millennial’s generation dependency on cell phones. This was a way to say you didn’t have a cell phone growing up, but you need it now. There is an underlying service that they provide that is quite useful, particularly in that situation. Along the lines of what you were saying, if this had been a traditional Verizon commercial, we wouldn’t be talking about it. It would have just been completely skipped over.

J: I think that Verizon has a tendency to come at you kind of snarky. There’s always this sarcasm about them being Verizon and being able to hear clearly on the phone. There is this sort of arrogance in their advertising a lot. For them to come down a peg, it was very impressive and extremely unexpected.

Z: Now, the next one I want to talk about is one that took advantage of being in Atlanta. This was a big risk, so much so that is was hard for me to find that spot after the podcast.

 

39:30: Fifth Superbowl Commercial Explained

Z:  Before we talk about the details of this, can we just talk about how stupid it is for a restaurant or business to have a door that says push on a pull handle. You don’t push on a pull bar and you don’t pull on a push bar. The thing about this spot is they obviously went directly after Chick-fil-A. Chick-fil-A is from Atlanta. They decided to be super abrasive and see what happens. It worked because people were very upset in Atlanta that somebody dare go after Chick-fil-A that’s from the south. The good thing behind this is you get two guys that fit the football demographic coming together talking about whatever they wanted to talk about. Having them both fit the football demographic as sports announcers was very smart but the constant, underhanded digging at Chick-fil-A. I like Chick-fil-A. I understand why they did it because they were trying to draw out what they think is a weakness for Chick-fil-A. Chick-fil-A does not look at that as a weakness. What were your thoughts about it?

J: You’re very emotional about this Zaxby’s ad. I mean I do love me some Atlanta, but I am a Midwestern girl. I like it. When you’re a company and you want to create advertising, you got to find what makes you different than your competitors. Chick-fil-A only sells chicken. Zaxby’s only sells chicken. They are each other’s direct competition. Chick-fil-A has its own brand in Atlanta that runs away with itself. However, if Zaxby’s is going to be a formable opponent, it had to think about what really set it apart from its direct competitor. People want chicken on Sunday’s. It’s the end of the weekend and the work week is getting ready to start. Everybody has this fried chicken fantasy on a Sunday. What I really like about Zaxby’s is they decided that’s what we’ve got going for us. We might not have the best tasting product, but we are open on Sundays. They pinpointed the one thing that makes them different from their competition. They decided to pour their Superbowl money into it. I thought it was brilliant. What I also thought was brilliant was super shady; however, it did not directly call out Chick-fil-A unlike the Bud Light commercial that was calling out other beer brands. This one did not. All they stated was that they have chicken on Sundays. Chick-fil-A left this huge hole in their brand that invites competition in by not being open on Sunday. The people that run Chick-fil-A don’t see it as a weakness because it gives everyone time to spend with their families.

Z: It sets them apart from every other restaurant.

J: It does. It’s part of their brand recognition which is so great. I guess it’s the devil’s advocate part in me, but I just thought that Zaxby’s did a really wonderful job wedging. Zaxby’s made themselves at home in that gap that they have to share with Chick-fil-A. It was very daring to do that in Atlanta.

Z: Let’s move on and talk about that. Let’s talk about Pepsi. Pepsi is the last one we are going to go through today. But, there is a bigger story. Pepsi sponsors the halftime show. When the Superbowl came to Atlanta, they came here about a week earlier. They plastered the town with outdoor marketing that said “Guess who’s in Atlanta” directly poking fun at Coca-Cola. The first thing people saw were these banners up on the street signs around Atlanta. It was very witty which was similar to what Zaxby’s did. They knew the situation and they met it head-on. People were very upset which was the point. They were talking about it on the radio show and people were talking about it on social media. They wanted the city of Atlanta to take down Pepsi’s outdoor marketing. They couldn’t because they bought it. They paid for the right for the Superbowl. There is nothing that the city of Atlanta can do because Pepsi had a right to it so that was first. Then, we didn’t hear anything else. Then, came their Superbowl ad which was obviously spearheaded by somebody that is from the south. Let’s watch it and you’ll see what I mean.

 

49:10: Sixth Superbowl Commercial Explained

Z: The thing about this that is so smart is they took a situation that happens almost every hour in Atlanta. When people order a Coke, no soft drink, no matter what it is, is called Coke. We don’t call it Pop. We don’t call it soda. It’s called Coke. You have a brand of Coke, but to begin with you say you want Coke. That is immediately the first thing that happens. She says she wants a Coke and the waiter says “we have Pepsi products is that okay?” That is because it’s not really Coke. That happens all the time for restaurants in Atlanta. If they carry something other than Coca-Cola products, they have to say whether it’s Coke or Pepsi.

J: It doesn’t taste the same.

Z: They would have to refund your money. That happens all the time. Then, they use celebrity endorsement in the commercial to make it funny on top of that. Though I am from the south, I do think that this was very smartly done. They didn’t attack Coke. They just said “really is that what you’re going to say?” What did you think?

J: I loved how they used Steve Carell. He is such a likeable guy. Of course, he is forever tight cast as my favorite Office member. He could just say anything and you’d just say “it’s Steve Carell.” The use of him really softened the blow which was pretty smart. They came in like a whirlwind in their outdoor advertising. The actual ad is shown all over the world. They did a softer blow that way because it’s directly catered to the people of Atlanta. I have a comment about that since you’re so saucy about this whole Pepsi invasion. I thought it was really funny because Atlanta hosts the Superbowl. As a gracious host, we have to allow people to come through that we may or may not like very much. To your point, they would not have agreed to do the Superbowl if it had a huge problem with Pepsi because Pepsi is the halftime show. The fact that Pepsi came in with a guerilla attack is right where we are as a nation with all the controversy. Most of these ads are designed around divisiveness even in a playful way. The point was to get people upset. I don’t know how I feel about that because part of me thinks that it’s really great.

Z: Let me share with you what happened afterwards. Now the Superbowl is over and the first thing that Pepsi did was put out another ad which I’m going to throw up here. It’s not a video ad. It’s a graphic. It says “Dear Atlanta, now that the week is over, we want to take a moment to thank you for being such gracious hosts. You really have an amazing city and have truly lived up to the standards of southern hospitality. Thank you as well for being such good sports in embracing the cola truce. By putting aside our differences for a day, we were able to do some good and donate 130,000 meals to people in need in partnership with the United Way of Atlanta. Here’s to making new friends in unexpected places. Cheers, Pepsi” That was very classy. It let people know Pepsi was just poking fun and it was very light-hearted. They were able to protect their market share in the south by doing something like this. I think it was very well done.

J: I think it’s wonderful. It allowed for them a couple opportunities to throw out their own hashtags. I think that they handled it really well. You can tell the difference between mature brands and immature brands. There are two types of immature brands. There are brands that have been around for a long time and still are always reaching for the low hanging fruit. Then, there are the brands that are relatively new to the game which are the obvious immature ones. Budweiser nailed it this year as it does every Superbowl. They tried to reach all different sectors of the community. They have the silly commercials, but overall they are a mature brand. I think Verizon has been an immature brand in my eyes and they’ve been around a long time. This year you saw maturity.

Z: They grew up a little bit.

J: I think Zaxby’s is still playing fun. Zaxby’s has a lot of campaigns out there about their milkshakes and getting celebrities to endorse different salads. It’s pretty easy. It’s pretty low. Then, they come out with this tongue and cheek one about Chick-fil-A which was a sign of strategy maturity. They are thinking more strategically. There were definitely some misses this year, but I also thought that there was some bar raising. One of the ones that you didn’t mention because Zachary has a sensitive gross-o-meter was the one that had the chewable milk. It totally grossed him out. I thought it was hysterical.

Z: It was mint something. Mint media? It was a company that I didn’t know.

J: It left an impression because everybody has a visceral reaction when you think of chunky milk. They were like “this is so good.” Then, you see the young teenager trying to get it out of the glass and it shoots back up. I thought that was hysterical. I will remember it forever because of that image that unifies all of us together. I don’t think that there is a person on this planet that likes chunky milk. In a world where we are constantly fraught with divisiveness and competitiveness, trying to focus on what is truly unifying about humanity is really important. It is very difficult to find things that do.

Z: I am just glad that we didn’t see anything that was about Trump. There wasn’t anything the entire time where there was Trump-bashing. I don’t recall any of that.

J: We didn’t have any political controversy. Last year, there was a Bud Light ad with Amy Schumer and Jimmy Fallon. It was bringing in politics. To your point Zachary, I don’t recall any political talk.

Z: There were several things that were brought up as far as issues like corn syrup and the first responders. There were a lot of other good commercials that were definitely some of the top ones. Let us know what some of your favorites were. Go to our Facebook page, facebook.com/straightshot.

J: Do you have a straight shot for today?

Z: I don’t really have one for today.

 

59:28: The Straight Shot

J: Why don’t I give you my straight shot? My straight shot for this is that I felt that people were maturing this time. Also, campaigns were getting a little braver. I think that people are getting a lot more outspoken. People are growing up a little bit. Immature brands are finally stepping out of their comfort zone. I feel like as a medium-sized business owner recognizing what makes you different than your competition and living in that moment can really pay off. You can take a gamble and it not pay off. It just depends.

Z: The other thing that comes from Superbowl advertising has been the time and investment to come up with something that is creative. They can hit people’s heart strings and be emotional or be funny. People respond to emotional triggers. Smart advertising knows how to hit on those emotional triggers of their target market. Some of these ads were very smartly done. We appreciate smart marketing.

J: Get out of your comfort zone. Take a risk, but understand that every risk is a gamble. Don’t leave it up to fate. Do your research. Figure out who your target audience is and how your gamble might be perceived. I think that the game itself was quite boring, but the commercials were more fun than watching the game.

Z: The advertising during the Superbowl is always good because of the event. It’s nice for the Superbowl to be a time where people want to see the commercials and talk about them the next day. I think it really is a time when agencies find appreciation.

J: Allowing agencies and creatives to exercise their creativity. A lot of times, agencies are strangled a little bit by our clients where our clients are afraid to take risks or afraid to reach outside the box. We end up doing a lot of water downed material.

Z: We do things that are safe. Some are edgy. Some are in between. Being on target is most important.

J:  Shock for no reason is just shock.

Z: There are a lot of things that are just all fluff. We don’t want that either. More creative ones are fun. I had a client call me this week because they wanted to talk about doing an idea for a campaign where they were rock stars. The fact that a client comes to me with a creative idea is amazing as long as it makes sense.

J: It’s our job to make it make sense.

Z: That’s all we have for today. Stay tuned for the next straight shot after this. We will upload this as soon as possible before the Superbowl buzz is over with.

J: If you guys want to be guests on the podcast, we are always inviting people to come in and share your opinions. You can always email us at info@straightshot.net. You can also call and the phone number is 678-825-8086 ext. 300. You can call us there and leave us some information. We’ll get back to you with a time where you can come in.

Z: If you have something that you want for us to talk about, let us know through those same avenues. A lot of people were asking me “how do you guys watch the Superbowl ads.” They were looking forward to the show. If you have a question of how things work, just let us know. We’ll be sure to tackle it as long as it makes sense.

J: Thanks for joining us. Thank you Mr. Z. Come back and see us again for the next time we do this little podcast. I’m sure whatever we have to say will be insightful, intelligent, brilliant, and hilarious. Have a great night and we’ll see you later.

 

 

Episode One: Introductions