Using comedy to create great advertising messages

For whatever reason, I never watched a Seinfeld episode while the classic NBC comedy was new. I'm sure I've seen every episode now, thanks to syndication and specifically cable network TBS.

Comedy in advertising is always risky, especially on a local level. National commercials have as big a production as a network sitcom, including comedy writers if you choose to go down that path. Locally, not as sophisticated and too many times epic failures.

I helped a local candy shop set up a photo shoot for a Forrest Gump parody. I was nervous about how the audience would receive it. The popularity of the movie was big at the time, and the ad actually won awards.




The Floor Trader billboard is a good comedy example. It works as a standard billboard with a simple message. But the parody is there if you know the episode from Seinfeld.

I'm not sure this parody was as strong as that Gump reference from the 1990's. But I still thought it was funny, even if Seinfeld signed off of first run in 1998. The episode in question, where George's nude photo was actually 20 years ago. And it still makes me laugh....