There have been many books written about the ills of advertising and how it’s all part of a grand plan to entrap society into a “keep up with your neighbors, spend money, rack up credit card debt” world where nobody feels safe and where, as a result, The People allow congressmen to stay in office forever by collecting contributions of large companies who are responsible for the advertising in the first place.  The masters of this plan, the theory goes, do it to keep everyone just on the verge of broke so they’ll continue to be so worried about their financial situation and their desire to get more stuff that they’ll look the other way as congress gives tax breaks to the richest 1%, and hands out billions to banks and continues to build missiles and airplanes that will never be used. 

It is the conclusion of the authors of such books that if we did away with advertising, nobody would know where their friend got their boots or their car, and so instead of consuming, most people would instead of sit around coveting, which would somehow compel them to toil at meaningful pursuits.   I have not read these books, but I imagine if I did I would be in agreement that consumerism will ruin America and that the Coors family and Rupert Murdoch are “mostly” to blame for the problem but even if I concede that advertising was evil at its root, I would support a bill that would curtail speech for large corporations but preserve, at all costs, the right of small and family-owned businesses to make their terrible, terrible advertisements.

The beauty of local advertising is that though it is by definition, unique to certain Chevy dealerships or lumber companies from Seattle to Miami, all small businesses have reached an accord whereby all they’ve agreed that the overall fit and finish of their ads will be somewhere between “bad” and “made in the high school editing room even though good editing software costs about $90”.  Aside from sharing an agreed level of badness all successful local advertisers agree to adhere to the following rules: 

1)   The ad must contain some member of the owning family, specifically, when available, members of different generations and shall always include grandchildren of the founders, if such people exist.

The reason for this rule is simple.  Marketing 101 tells us that people are more likely to patronize your business if you have an uncomfortable-looking child on the set of your commercial, especially if he is standing with a yellow Labrador and making a “kids say the darndest things” style comment about how when he runs the tire company they are going to sell gumball machines!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwV1EHG4TMs

 Additionally, what people like, more than a cheap price, is seeing people they don’t know joke about their hilarious family dynamics (Dad is so crazy he’ll almost give away cars!) in a commercial about their Hyundai dealership.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WunKk9tV-E4&feature=related

2)  
The ad must contain the use of some slick modern editing technology.

Though this rule is broad in its application, it is best embodied by the commonly-used  “local celebrity or non-actor employee swings golf club at couch and hits it spinning through the air and onto the green where, in a hilarious twist, the elderly founders suddenly appear on the couch watching golf on a TV which is ironically placed on the putting green”.  The following are great examples from two of the leading producers of local content in the Boston market:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdJqFM9x7DM&feature=related

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuzIJ92-HV8&NR=1 

3)   When possible, in Boston, it is appropriate to insert as many current and former professional athletes as one can find, even if those athletes are unable to read, or talk, or know not to wear pleated pants when they are 5’ 8” tall and skinny because it makes them look like their mother just made them get ready to go to the science fair.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAUU-bC4yOg

4)   The fourth rule is that you must have a great jingle. 

This goes for radio as well as TV.  When you’re making a jingle it’s important that it sound like it was written in 6 minutes and it is best if it involves stuffing extra syllables into places where they don’t really fit, and of course, liberal use of rhyming such as when you rhyme “beer” with “weird”. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXSDzvwwE3E

Since I’m not a policy expert or an alarmist author I can’t predict what will become of the American Way when we’re all maxed out, but I’ve spent enough time with owners of small businesses to know that if your advertisements contain all or some of the four elements above your family business will grow and flourish for at least two generations; until one of your kids or grandkids screws up the business by becoming an alcoholic, or getting divorced, or running someone over with a forklift.