The secret sauce of television commercials

Make me watch, make me laugh or smile, and I will remember. Seems simple enough, but it isn’t. Just look at your average television ad; beer ads are especially bad. Cute guys in a bar. Cute girls in a bar. Cute girls on a beach. A beer being poured. A beer being served. Cheers with a beer. People drinking a beer. Pretty boring.  Then, look at ads during the Super Bowl. For the most part, they are excellent. Remember this one for Budwieser? Not your typical beer ad, is it? No scantily clad women, no group of guys partying with them, and crazily enough, no beer. But it’s a great ad. It tells a story, makes you smile and even though you don’t see a beer, you remember the product being promoted.

Every year CREA tries to play the same game, with a few obstacles thrown in the way to make it challenging. We don’t have the millions Budweiser does for production. Or access to acres of movie-quality sets and chart-topping music. But we do have a team of REALTORS® on the National Ad Campaign Committee (NACC) working to make a memorable, entertaining and amusing ad that reminds people of the value of REALTORS®. So far so good, a couple of CREA ads have even won national advertising awards.

Here is this year’s effort, our 2014 ad:

UPDATE: Our apologies, this video is no longer available. Find out more about our National Ad Campaign as well as past and current ads on REALTOR Link®

Bottom line, a good television ad makes you “lean in”, to sit up, take notice, watch, be entertained and engaged. Tell us what you think of the ad. Post your examples of great “lean in” commercials for every day products you’ve noticed.

Here are a few ads REALTORS® sent us from last month’s NEWS2ME:

Smart for Two – Offroad Commercial

Tropicana Advert: Arctic Sun – Brighter mornings for brighter days

Volvo Trucks – The Epic Split feat Van Damme

Kmart Ship My Pants

Cliff Iverson was CREA’s President in 2016. Cliff previously served as the Saskatchewan Regional Director on the Canadian Real Estate Association Board of Directors. Since the beginning of his career in 1978, he has served on numerous committees, specifically the Board of Directors of the Association of Regina REALTORS® from 1989-1995, and as the President in 1994. He joined the Board of Directors again from 2003-2006 culminating in the Presidency again in 2005. At that time, Cliff joined the Board of Directors of the Association of Saskatchewan REALTORS® and was named President for the year 2009. In 2010, he began his Directorship at the Canadian Real Estate Association and Chaired the REALTOR® Code Committee for two years, the National Ad Campaign Committee and also was a member of the Futures Implementation Team, Chairing the Rate Your REALTOR® Work Group and as a member of the Professional Development Work Group. He and his partner, Karen Krawczyk, are both REALTORS® in Regina.


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