Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 10, 1991 TAG: 9102070046
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MAG POFF BUSINESS WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
White, art director of Ogilvy and Mather, said he'd like to see more advertising work like a series of newspaper ads that the Jack Smith Agency of Roanoke created for Texas Tavern. The series, promoting the downtown Roanoke food shop, won best-in-show in the annual Addy Awards presented Saturday night by the Advertising Federation of the Roanoke Valley.
One ad's headline tells diners that "Our food will stick to your ribs. Just look how it stuck to our menu."
White described the Texas Tavern ads as "strong and very irreverent, the type that gets a lot of attention."
He came to Roanoke expecting to see good color advertisements for magazines as well. "Very little was even entered," he said.
Rather, White and other judges of this year's Addys said the newspaper work "was particularly strong. We saw some terrific design work, some very beautiful design."
"I was very impressed with the print work especially," said Susan Ciaverelli, senior copywriter for Gray, Kirk & Evans in Baltimore. "The black-and-white newspaper work was very strong.
She judged entries last month along with White and Richard Weir, owner of Weir Communications in Atlanta.
"Newspaper was absolutely the strongest and also had the most entries," Ciaverelli said. "That's where they're doing the most work, and they're very good at it," she said of the Roanoke advertising market.
The Texas Tavern best-in-show campaign will probably win national awards, she said. "It was very good."
Weir attributed "some very good print campaign entries" to the fact that Roanoke area businesses devote a larger share of their advertising budgets to buying space in newspapers than they do to purchasing time on television.
Radio and television entries were thinner, the judges said, but the winners were very good.
"There was some very funny radio and a couple of brilliant TV spots," Ciaverelli said. "The TV spots were better than the campaigns,"' Weir found.
Although the Roanoke agencies created "some standout spots" for television and radio, White said, "a lot of people didn't stick to the classic idea of simplicity. They were more complicated than they needed to be."
Ciaverelli liked a TV ad created by Edmonds Packett Group for Grand Piano & Furniture Co. The commercial features a couch that slides off the screen, making the point that the retailer delivers to customers' homes.
"It was a real good example of a simple idea well executed," Ciaverelli said.
White was "moved by the impact" of another Edmonds Packett TV creation for Heart Net. "It was impactful but done on a shoestring budget," White said.
The judges made the same point about a radio ad for Holdren's that won a gold medal. Also created by the Jack Smith Agency, it featured a discussion between two fast-talking characters named Bill and Bob. They used alliteration and plays on words, especially their names, to create humor about an upcoming sale at Holdren's.
White said the radio commercial presented "a single, strong idea. It rang out and made a strong impression."
The piece was well written, Weir said, and was read by two announcers. It didn't require a lot of production or music. Yet, he said, it was "very simple, very direct - and it grabbed you."
"It was very funny," was Ciaverelli's verdict.
Weir said the entries for direct mail advertising illustrated the same point.
Advertisers are relying more heavily on direct mail campaigns, Weir said, and the mailings are becoming more elaborate.
Some of the Roanoke mailing pieces were "beautifully produced," Weir said, "but the ideas were not as strong as some things less expensively done."
One thing that struck Weir was the number of people involved in preparing for the Addy Award contest and presentations. "It shows they're committed to doing a good job," Weir said.
"We were all impressed when we settled out and when we saw all the winners together on the table," White said. "It was very impressive . . . some very nice work."
by CNB