For non-prime time stuff, if you want ad time on network TV you bid for blocks.  If your bid is high for a given slot then your commercial gets in.  This leads to a phenomenon that you’re all familiar with, the same commercial on every commercial break for 4 hours, sometimes even the same commercial consecutively.

So I just saw the same commercial thrice, every other spot.  It’s a 15 second spot, and…well…it’s about a vibrator.

Now I’m not such a prude that I’m offended by the commercial’s content or object.  Tampon commercials, frankly, are more offensive.  It was really very tasteful actually.  It went a little something like this:

<scene – outdoors, ostensibly poolside, high-top table with fruity drinks.  Two women, only breast area visible (clothed), and their two purses on the table>

Women: blah blah blah (who listens to what two floating breasts are saying?)

<purse on the left begins to vibrate uncontrollably>

Woman 2: “Are you going to get that?”

Woman 1: <lovingly pats purse> “Oh, I’ll get it later…”.

Women:  Lauging.

</scene>

Then a website and phone numbers and locations for what I’m assuming is a small adult store franchise. 

Now this is much better than most local advertising, let me tell you.  It’s actually fairly clever for a 15 second spot, and it isn’t overtly sexual.  There’s no horrid dialog or, God help them, rapping.  The funny part though is the editing.  At the end, the women are laughing at their little inside joke about the vibrator which, by the way, is man enough to make the purse (Louis Vuitton knockoff) move around on the table, if you ladies were wondering.  The funny part is that when the commercial fades to black for the showing of the locations and whatnot, there’s another half-second of the laughing.  And at the very end of that half-second, one of the laughing women SNORTS!!!!  Straight-up hard core unmistakeable snort!  And I wasn’t sure the first time, but since it came on twice more in the same commercial break, I listened more carefully, and sure enough, a snort.

The moral of the story?  Editing is your friend.  Also, probably get someone who isn’t in your family or doesn’t know you well to proof the commercial for stuff like that.  All in all, one of the best short-form local ads I’ve seen on TV, definitely a step above the local car dealer spots, and like 20 steps above the commercials of a certain local pawn shop, but just when everything seems to be going so well…you let a snort in.  Such a shame.