CLIENT NEWS “A Little Me Time” Ad David Ligon, Creative Principal, Sacramento April 26, 2016 When I first launched my agency, my very first client was Ettore’s Restaurant and European Bakery. I signed them on June 1, 2001 for public relations. But as time went by, I became a more integral part of their marketing efforts, and was soon involved in more than just PR, including advertising. In the fall of that year, Ettore Ravazzolo (owner) phoned to ask me to create an ad that showed Ettore’s was a comfortable place to go for a meal and take a break from it all. The terrorists’ attacks of 9/11 were still fresh in everyone’s mind and the country had not gone back to normalcy yet. Before my arrival, Ettore’s ads were quite different. Consisting mostly of clip art and encouraging people to come for the $9.95 chicken dinner. Now of course, I’m not a big fan of that type of advertising (unless you are specifically a chicken place). Even though there was no budget (other than my monthly retainer), I wanted to create something that conveyed what Ettore wanted, while being a step up from the previous “clip art” ads; which meant a fun headline and using a photo. But also doing something that wasn’t clichéd and with that added hint of humor I love so much. And finally, to start branding Ettore’s as both a restaurant and bakery with incredible food. All this with virtually no extra money. “The terrorists’ attacks of 9/11 were still fresh in everyone’s mind and the country had not gone back to normalcy yet.” Ettore’s “A...
CLIENT NEWS California Plan Your Giving - The PSAs David Ligon, Creative Principal, Sacramento December 02, 2014 Back in 2011, we were asked by the co-chair of “California Plan Your Giving” to create some PSAs. CPYG is an initiative to get people to pledge money to their favorite charities upon their passing. It was important that we didn’t play favorites or push people toward one charity. The whole point was to get people to give. Period. The idea was to create PSAs that resembled testimonials about giving, since we didn’t want to show one type of charity (e.g. homelessness). We tried it with real donors first, and found it didn’t work out quite as we wanted. In one case, the college aged child of parents who had made the pledge to give a portion of her inheritance to charity wanted to rewrite the script. And what she wrote was fine if we wanted to promote her parents, but not if we wanted to ask other people to give money. Plus, she was a little stiff and not very compelling since she wasn’t used to being in front of the camera. The second one we did worked much better. But we knew going forward that if we wanted to create some memorable PSAs we would have to script them, and get people who are comfortable being in front of the camera — like, you know, actors. Luckily, I know a bunch of actors. And in almost all cases, these actors are very committed to their communities in various charity endeavors. So it was a win-win situation. Below are the PSAs we created. On the...
DIARY OF AN ADMAN ELECTION 2004: Fun With Cake. David Ligon, Creative Principal, Sacramento June 17, 2016 Since today is election day and in honor of my new series “Take A Look Back Tuesday,” here was a fun little election announcement project from the past. In November 2003, I had one of those “Ready. Set. Go” moments. Popular radio talk show host Tom Sullivan was going to announce live on his radio show whether he would run for the 2004 Republican nomination for Congress or continue with his radio program (this is before he took his show national). I came up with a fun idea for my bakery client to bake him a cake that covered either decision (just turn the cake around and it would support his choice). Unfortunately, I thought up the idea two nights before Sullivan’s big announcement. The next morning (one day before Sullivan’s announcement), I was with Ettore Ravazzolo, owner of Ettore’s Restaurant and European Bakery (my client at the time), for a noon TV gig. I told him about this fun idea and too bad I hadn’t come up with it sooner, because we could have done it. Or so I thought. Later that afternoon, Ettore’s general manager called to tell me Ettore wanted to do the cake, but they would need the artwork by 6:00 p.m. (the call came a few hours before that). At the time, this was only an idea, there was no artwork to give them. I hadn’t even fully formulated what I would write or create. So with only a couple of hours to write out the concept, create the artwork, get it approved and get...
