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Opinion

Meet the Parents

 

With both Mother’s and Father’s Day generating big business and being roughly only a month apart, we thought we’d take advantage of the opportunity to run some new radio ads promoting the importance of businesses having a well-established web presence.

We had no parodies in mind for these two holidays so we set out to write some original content. The easy and safe thing to do would have been to grab a handful of low-hanging fruit and write some sappy, sentimental, Hallmark-y ads but, we went in kind of the opposite direction.

It’s Mother’s Day and you’re sitting at a nice restaurant with your mom, she is a newly minted business owner so you thought you’d get her a new website for her company. You’re a little nervous but also excited and now it’s time for the big reveal so, you present mom with your gift and await her reaction. Surprised and elated, mom raves about her beautiful new site, you feel relieved and proud, all is right in the world…….until mom realizes that the site isn’t being marketed. After looking for basic online listings and promotional ads, only to find none, mom’s attitude takes a turn for the worst and the whole tone of the conversation changes. A minute ago, you were basking in the warmth of your mother’s love and gratitude and now, your head is spinning, your stomach is turning and your dear, sweet mom is hammering with you a guilt-laden tirade consisting of disappointment, shame, and emotional manipulation. “Why can’t you be more like your sister?” “I spent 2 days in labor for this?!?!”, “I knew I should have given you up for adoption” and “I’m taking you out of my will” are some of the sweet things mom hurls back at you. Apparently, it’s true that no good deed goes unpunished.

For Father’s Day, we decided to go with a similar theme but it was the company president who came up with the idea to use the same abused, well-meaning but marketing-challenged (adult) son in that ad.

It’s early morning on Father’s Day, the sun is shining, birds are chirping and we find our subjects looking at the recently erected signage for their new construction business. Soft, sentimental piano music plays in the background as father and son admire the new sign and share their hope and enthusiasm for their budding young business…….until dad asks his boy how he spent the company marketing budget that he left him in charge of.

It’s here we learn that since the Mother’s Day gifting debacle, Junior’s mom disowned him and moved to India, as a result, he is in therapy 4 times a week and has been paying for it with the money his dad gave him to market their company.

Trying to contain his anger and disappointment, Dad launches into a passive-aggressive rebuke of his son’s misappropriation of their marketing funds and issues a veiled threat wrapped nicely inside a story about how Aztec parents punished their kids for making stupid decisions.

The saga of this incredibly unhealthy, dysfunctional family will not end there as we have plans for Junior to exact his revenge with a mic-dropping, emotional explosion at Thanksgiving dinner, later this year.

Stay tuned!

Below is a link to our radio ad gallery where you can listen to the aforementioned ads.

https://www.idealpositions.com/thank-you/audio-ad-gallery/