Rants and Ramblings: random commentary about culture, media, politics, technology and whatnot.

recycled commercials

When agencies do work for their clients, be it a television spot or a Web site, they often create multiple concepts to present to the client. But once the client chooses a concept, the other concepts are often simply discarded. The Denver Post reports that a Denver company is trying to make a profit selling castoff television spots to companies with limited advertising budgets. (“Entrepreneur recycles ads for fun and profit” - 11/23/03)

Kevin Schaff recycles ads that cost anywhere from $50,000 to more than $1 million to produce, pitching them on the cheap to small businesses that can’t afford the costly brainstorming, writing, filming, actors and editing that original productions require.

Schaff’s company, Thought Equity, gives small companies access to top creative talent without the hefty price tag, but experts say the new ground Schaff is plowing is fraught with risk.

Thought Equity wipes the ads of all product and company references and resells them, typically for less than $10,000.

Most agencies that send Schaff commercials insist their names never be used because their original clients paid dearly for the original work.

And the fact that Thought Equity is copying on the cheap raises legal questions, Advertising Age magazine editor Hoag Levins said…

What differentiates Schaff’s catalog of ads from typical stock footage and image companies is that Thought Equity sells an entire commercial, not just clips or pictures, and Schaff works across all industries, Cleveland said.

The idea sounds interesting, but vaguely skeevy. As the article mentions, the the companies who originally discarded those television spots paid for them as part of the price of developing their ad campaigns. It doesn’t seem particularly ethical for their ad agencies to be reselling the castoff ads, although I understand, to a certain degree, the “if no one else is using it…” argument.

(Link found via Slashdot.)