Pizza Commercial

[Steve Wargo]

I produced a Pizza spot in HD a while back. They had it on their website for a while but I can’t find it right now. See eatzapizza.com We used slightly wider food shots showing complimentary items like the salad and a beverage. The beauty shot of the dough being kneeded by hand. A fly over of all the different offerings. A slice being pulled from a pie.

Ask the client this.
Why should someone choose your pizza (menu) over others?
What makes your place special?
Why them instead of a chain?
Do they have a quality guarantee?
Specials? Anchovy night? Free drinks during certain sports.
Repeat customer clubs? (Card required)
Do the owners look nice?
What would make someone leave their house and go there to dine?

Welcome to the world of “Marketing”.

Remember Mama Celeste Pizza? We did their spots for years. When we put the beautiful 25 year old grand daughter, also named Celeste, in the spots, sales jumped over 20%.

One of my biggest clients is an organization that teaches reataurant owners how to market their restaurant. It’s dog eat dog if you’ll please excuse the pun.

Show HAPPY diners but please, do not show people putting food in their mouth. Professional spots never show people eating. Bringing the food up, yes. Sticking it in their mouth? No thanks. Remember, you’re selling the dining experience, not just the food. Eating an Outback steak at home just ain’t the same.

Good Luck

Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona

It’s a dry heat!

[Damonstration]

Thanks, man. Those are some great tips and questions to ask. Also I didn’t know about no food in the mouth. This is actually my first commercial and the only reason I got it is because I worked for the pizza place last year hahaha. Well thanks again, that’s good stuff.

Alex Damon
http://www.underearthstudios.com

[Bob Cole]

[Steve Wargo] “Professional spots never show people eating.”

That’s very interesting. I thought I noticed a lot of commercial “rules,” but somehow I never spotted that one.

It does make you wonder, though. If you broke ALL the rules in one 30-second spot — show food not only going into the mouth, but coming out and going in again (“Pizza so good you’ll want to eat it twice”)… zits growing on eater’s face… grease dripping… pizza flipper blows his nose with his fingers and then catches the falling pie (“our secret recipe that nobody can duplicate”) ….

Well — it sure would get peoples’ attention anyway.

I need to see “Putney Swope” sometime again.

What are the other commercial rules? For some reason, years ago I noticed an awful lot of pure-white windows in the background — what’s that about?

— Bob C

[Damonstration]

I actually got a decent idea that would be creative and not so generic “here is our pizza please come eat it.” I was thinking something along the lines of a 1950s instructional video in black and white where there’s happy music playing and everyone’s unusually happy and really cheesy. Please tell me what you think. Thanks

Damonstration

[Michael Hancock]

Hahaha! If done right, that would be great. I can just imagine now…the lilting music, the giant fake smiles, the “Wow, this pizza is swell!” and “Golly that’s a big slice! Plus a soda pop! Yum.” I like it.

Mike.

[Mike Cohen]

or along the same lines make it like a 1950’s government propaganda movie – remember “Duck and Cover”?

[Damonstration]

I know what you’re talking about, but not specifically “Duck and Cover.” Could you refresh my memory?

[Deleted User]

[Damonstration] “… “Duck and Cover.” Could you refresh my memory?”

See Archive.org:
https://www.archive.org/details/DuckandC1951

Archive.org can be an endless source of inspiration. For example:
https://www.archive.org/details/prelinger

All the best,

– Peter

[Mark Suszko]

Depending on what aspect you want to push, you have many creative possibilities. I liked the 50’s film theme because it’s amusing if well-executed, being in B&W, oddly matted on the screen like a projector, or weirdly saturated colors will make it stand apart. Be sure to fake a couple splice “bumps” by deliberately throwing in a jump cut here or there and bumping the audio a second or two later, along with a momentary wow in the music track. This can be very funny, done right.

But whatever you’re going to do, it has to serve telling your copy points FIRST. Funny or artistic is useless unless it connects the customer to a need for the particular product and motivates a response in the customer. Fortune 50 companies with millions to spend on superbowl spots still make this beginner’s error: it may be memorable, it may be entertaining, but if it doesn’t move merchandise as well, it’s a flop.

That’s where you have to start: with a needs analysis. Ask some of those good questions listed earlier. The creative treatment should follow from the needs analysis and a study of the target market and what they like and don’t like. Very short example: If you are marketing to harried parents with no time to cook, you’re going to do a different spot than if you market to partying college kids. If your client says they want to hit all markets with one spot, they are crazy, this is a near impossible task, even with a big budget.

Your 50’s idea makes me think of a variation. If you wanted to say the other guy’s pizzas are not as fresh as yours, you could bring out the concept of “Pizza years”… like dog years… a pizza has only a short time where it’s optimal. You could use the old 50’s thing to make the competitor’s pizza look “old” compared to the piping hot and fresh hero pizza. You could do this kind of spot without even showing the pizzas… use two actors side by side representing the pizzas, one ages rapidly with every cutaway shot, the other remains young and “fresh”. The “old and cold” (TM)guy can rave like an overly-nostalgic cantankerous old cuss like Grampa Simpson, while the hero pizza person is all sweetness and friendliness, etc. It would be something like the current Apple vs. PC commercials. It’s an old technique that comes back into vogue every few years.

[Webfilms]

First I would put together the tools I have and think of people to help you as in asking for ideas from this fourm. Maybe you have friends that have a band and could do the sound track. Maybe you know 4 hot women to play customers. I would try to tell a story in 30 sec. Start with a phone call order pie. Owner makes pie. Customer gets pie. Is happy. You constantly repeat name and phone number add a joke or two between workers and customers and you create a mood. I like present day time frame and keep it real and shoot at location. Good Luck hope this helps. Try story boarding your story and your more likely have a spot that will be easy to cut.