LOCAL TV ADS FIGHT IMPORTS
Originally published in TV Weekly May 23, 1966.
New Zealand-made TV commercials now include sophisticated animation and tricky visual effects. See above a miniature for a commercial made in the Wellington studios of Pacific Television, in association with Sam Harvey Animations.
As a viewer you probably heartily dislike all TV advertising, forgetting those occasions when you have found it amusing, inventive and a lot more fun than the programmes that followed.
TV advertising is like the girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead. When TV advertising is good, it is very, very good . . . but when it is bad, it is terrible. Unfortunately most viewers have total recall for all the really bad TV commercials.
Of the commercials screening at the present time quite a fair proportion were made by local film makers in Wellington and Auckland. You may recall some jolly ads encouraging the happy consumption of bananas, bouncing coffee beans, cars ricochet- ing off turfy paddocks, languorous legs in fine nylons - you have seen all of these in smart New Zealand-made TV commercials.
They are good because all locally made commercials have to combat competitive advertisements from Australia and America.
But this is not the case in Australia. Over there all commercials appearing on Australian television channels must be made in Australia. This rul- ing does away with some glaring in- justices.
For example, the Australian film maker never has to have his commercial screened against a competitive American ad employing famous “name” stars to endorse the name of the product. If an American soft drink manufacturer wishes to advertise in Australia he must get Australian film makers to produce the commercial for him.
This is not so in New Zealand.
New Zealand-made commercials are expected to stand up to the competition of American advertising which is permitted to be shown on our TV screens. This puts the local business concern at a serious dis- advantage.
If he produces a soft drink just for the New Zealand market he will probably get a local film unit to make his TV commercial for him. But imagine how he feels if, on the same evening that his TV commercial is broadcast, a huge American soft drink manufacturer with world-wide affiliations should present to the New Zealand public a Hollywood commercial spectacular with a famous comedian and chorus of beautiful show girls all singing at the tops of their voices the great name of a famous fizzy beverage.
You need a lot of money to make a spectacular TV commercial and New Zealand manufacturers have not the resources of such huge international companies whose ads appear on our TV screens.
Comments powered by CComment