27 March 2006

 

14. Unnecessarily Animated TV Commercials

There is a long and storied tradition of animated tv commercials. We have fond memories of Knight Rider being interrupted by a rambunctious conga-line of snack foods marching to the tune "Let's go out the kitchen and have ourselves a snack." Most cereal commercials from our youth also were animated to great effect. Dig 'Um, Toucan Sam, Tony the Tiger, all as familiar as old friends. These characters were all dreamt up by market researchers, then drawn by artists. They are entertaining mascots for easily differentiated products.
Nowadays, however, there is a strange trend afoot where companies produce animated commercials for no apparent reason other than to employ animators.
For the life of us, we cannot understand why the new Charles Schwab ads are animated. Stock brokering seems a fairly staid occupation--or is there some aspect that lends itself to whimsy or cartoons? One would assume that Schwab employs this technique to somehow set himself apart from other brokerage firms. We are no business maven, but would it not be more sensible to improve and/or differentiate one's product rather than simply roll out flashy commercials for the same product that everyone else sells?
The animation technique used in these Schwab spots is called "roto-scoping," which sounds like a knee operation, but is actually a sort of high-tech tracing. The effect is a creepy and puzzling realism that traps the viewer between real and cartoon worlds. Perhaps not unlike the adventuresome world of brokerage, with its scandals and scoundrels and hypothetical profit margins.
We have rended many garments trying to divine the wisdom behind having humans act out a commercial--to audition, cast, rehearse, and then film the scenes--only to then hire high-tech cartoonists to trace their features and movements using elaborate computerization, and then animate them. Especially when one of the commercials stars famous actor Matt Servitto, who plays Agent Dwight Harris on The Sopranos. Perhaps they are trying to stimulate investment in the roto-scoping industry? Greater minds than ours will have to grapple with this great question.

Comments:
I couldn't agree more!!! I hate those Schwab animated commercials, and have been complaining about them for a long time!!
 
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