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They come up with three concepts to present to the suits.
Wondermom
Mom, wearing a superhero cape over her business suit, comes home from the supermarket, where she has stopped on the way home from work. She takes our product out of the grocery bag and shows it to the babysitter, who has been dealing with the snot-nosed kid all day. Babysitter looks relieved and bows down to Wondermom in reverent admiration.
School Play
We see a school stage decorated for a school play. Children are dressed up as bottles of old-fashioned allergy medicines. They try to dance but keep clunking into one another and falling down, spastically. The music is an old-time children’s song coming from a tinny, scratchy record player. Suddenly, the music changes to DEVO’s “Whip It,” and one kid dances out like Baryshnikov, wearing a costume that looks like our product, and kicks the other kid’s asses.
Park Bench
We see two moms on the park bench, one looking tired and careworn, the other neat and perfect. The “Loser” mom’s kid comes up and sneezes on her, and she fumbles through her bag miserably and ineffectually, finally unearthing a gross Ziploc baggie full of used snot rags, a spoon, and old-fashioned allergy medicine. She looks utterly embarrassed as she is forced to display her true loserdom in front of her friend, “Smug” mom. Smug’s kid then comes up and also sneezes in her face. Smug effortlessly whips out our convenient new product. Smug then offers the product to Loser, smirks and says, “Try one of mine?” Loser looks at Smug gratefully, realizes she’s a pitiful excuse for a competent mother, and accepts the product.
The next morning, the creatives present their concepts to the suits. The suits love them all (this would never happen, but I do have a word limit here). Next, they all meet with the client to present the concepts.
After much debate, the client rejects the “Wondermom” concept, because it shows that Mom just may have a life outside the home. Also trashed is “School Play,” as it’s just too fun and irreverent, and everyone knows mothers have no sense of humor and are dead serious about their children’s allergy issues. They decide to produce Park Bench, but only after much reassurance from the agency that it will not smack of lesbianism and risk alienating the Fundamentalist/Heartland moms.
After more debate, they decide to keep fathers out of the spot, since today’s mothers are returning to a more traditional homemaking arrangement, according to the latest trend-watching research.
Then comes the talent search. The creatives and suits decide Loser should be twenty pounds heavier than Smug, she should be blond to indicate a certain ditziness, and her wardrobe should consist of high-waisted Mom jeans from L.L. Bean and a frumpy top. Smug should have short, dark hair, indicating her ability to stay in control of everything, even her hair, and her wardrobe is a mom-chic look from Chico’s. Loser’s child should be shlumpy and dim-witted. Smug’s kid should look like a future Rhodes scholar.
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Once they find the proper “talent” and the location, the day of the shoot finally arrives. On set are the suits and the creatives who worked on the project, plus anyone else from the agency who can attach themselves to the project in hopes of a day out of the office and a free, catered lunch, the stylist/set people/makeup people, the producer and his or her crew, the camera/lighting/sound/tech people, the caterer and his or her team, the director and his or her assistants, the “talent” and their entourages, and the clients, who sit around eating and making everyone nervous. The only ones who actually have real live children are the stage mothers who brought their two children to be in the commercial.
They do about three hundred takes, with everyone shouting direction at the talent. “Slump lower, loser mom! Yes, like that! Look more pathetic. Smug mom, let’s try that again, but this time don’t let us see you pull the medicine tube out…it just appears magically, you’re THAT in control. Smug’s kid, look more perfect. Stand up straighter. Excellent. Loser’s kid, look at your mom like you can’t believe how disgusting she is.”
Then, the inevitable happens.
“Can we get makeup over here? Loser just clocked Smug in the face and now Smug’s got a fat lip.”
There, now. Doesn’t this make you want to go out and buy that product?
Instead of seeing a commercial that adds yet another nagging doubt to today’s collective mom consciousness, I would have been happier to see the tube of medicine dancing across a school stage. Or, as we creatives used to say when we were trying to come up with a concept and were stumped, “Ya got nothing to say? Then sing it.”
Need more Kelley? A hefty collection of her great essays, What's the Matter With Mommy?, is now available on Amazon.com.
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