Eye Spy: Rick Hart
In 2010, the CBWA Blog is broadening it’s view and will review local work that is notable for whatever reason – good, bad, brand new, long-running, campaigns or one-offs. We’d like to say it will be a weekly thing but we’ve made that promise before and fallen over after a fortnight, so let’s just say our aim is to be fairly regular. To kick things off, Rick Hart’s new campaign with a heavy TV schedule behind it caught our eye.
The creative strategy of the jealous/bewildered/pressured competitor is a well-trodden path. Despite its lack of originality, it can be an engaging one. Motorola used it for a nice TVC a couple of years ago, and I recall one of the car companies using it last year.
Electrical retailer Rick Hart has adopted it for the summer, which any follower of the cricket on telly would have had plenty of opportunity to see. Unfortunately, a presumably very tight budget has resulted in a trying-too-hard-to-be-clever effort that’s reminiscent of the 80s.
It’s also a departure from their previous approach of using Rick Hart himselfto front and voice the ads. Agreed, Hart isn’t the most dynamicon-screen talent but at least he provided continuity and a touch ofcredibility in a John Hughes (good)/Tony Sadler (bad)/Benny Reuben(ugly!) kind of way.
Perhaps he’s not ‘cutting through’ as much as they’d like because this new campaign gives Rick the flick (for all but the last couple ofseconds) in favour of Igor Sas’s harried manager wondering “How doesRick Hart do it?!”
It does a job of getting noticed but that’s largely a factor of themedia buy. The campaign’s clumsy creative execution doesn’t do a lotfor the brand, in fact it probably sets it back a couple of years andwell behind The Good Guys, Retravision and even Harvey Norman.
Strategy okay, execution poor – 2/5.
15 Comments
Nice new angle CB, but a bit of a soft target. How about tackling some of the bigger agencies’ notable cash cow stinkers? Maybe you could also reference the local work against award-winning international examples just to show how opportunities can be missed.
Sweet can I write an article?
And while we’re here, who let Harvey Norman onto SBS?
Rick Hart , Tony Sadler, John Hughes etc…for f#*k sake the world has moved on.
Lets break free of these 80’s style ads Maybe lets we could all meet up at Cocos or Chianti on Colin’s for a good piss up to discuss it.
This was the lowlight of Perth TV over Xmas. Sorry.
The highlight was the still-running RAC animated piece. May have missed something better.
This is completely inaccurate. Benny Reuben is far more attractive than John Hughes.
When I first arrived in Perth 8 years ago, I switched on the box to an earful of that bloke from Rugs a Million. He’d ‘simply over ordered’, and now he was going to have let the whole lot go at not 80, not 60, not 50, not even 40% of the original price. No, the poor sod was going to shift the lot at just 25% of the original price. My heart went out to him. A couple of months later, I turned on the TV again and what do you know? He’s only gone an done it again! This time he had a consignment being delivered and had nowhere to put it. What a twat! It turns out he was going to have to sell everything in store at less than cost! LESS THAN COST!!! Over the years I’ve followed his sorry saga, and I have to say, I’ve grown quite fond of Rug Man. I would even shush my wife and child when he popped up with his latest tale of woe. So you can imagine my shock and disappointment when he announced late last year, that he would NEVER appear on our screens again. I was lost. I felt cheated. It was like when Daphne was killed on Neighbours.
My point is, that bad advertising, provided it’s bad enough, can be good. But it’s got to be really bad. Unfortunately, most of the work I see on TV is just shit, and not quite bad enough. I’m not yet sure whether the new Rick Hart stuff is quite bad enough to be good. I mean, it’s got nothing on Arrow Computers’ ‘Rusty Gates’ has it?
Hi hear you, Rug Man Fan.
I remember the time he said the Subiaco Council were closing down his premises and as a result, all his stock (that’s right – all) had to go. However, because I work in Subiaco and know the council to be kind understanding people, I couldn’t quite believe his story. I suggested (via his website) some other ideas that might be more credible. My favorite was, ‘my son’s had a sex change and I have to pay for the operation’.
He began his next spot by saying, ‘I know you don’t believe me but…’ And then proceeded to tell his next equally implausible story. I like to think that, through my TV set and his wife’s video camera, we made a little connection.
5.39
But can we really continue to feel good about producing stuff that is ironically bad? Not self-consciously bad – for it is almost 100% certain that the people who pay for these ads actually think they are pretty darn good – but ironically bad. The sort of bad that has us all sitting around at the Subi, sucking through our teeth at how we have let our standards and our professional integrity go on this client or that, comforting ourselves that a couple of scammy charity ads or a clever special for the West competition are somehow going to rescue us personally from the 99% of total rubbish the local industry churns out annually. Sure, we can all sit back and blame the relatively low cost of getting on air here in WA and the proliferation of can-do in-house TV station production companies. But ultimately this kind of work drags the whole industry down focussing as it does on an unrelentingly retail sales message with no modifying influence from planners, creatives or a director to encourage consumer engagement.
One flaw with this review – Rick Hart has stopped appearing in Rick Hart ads as he has resigned…
I wonder that a focus group would think of being yelled at while they’re trying to watch a (removed from) reality show.
I will miss Rug Man. I also miss Naughty Don Rogers “Going Mad with Money”, the Devil himself from Pheonix Holden and who can forget the tummy thumping native american from Big Rock Toyota? Gold, all of them.
Well, I’m well over being treated like a complete fucking neanderthal. Good bye to all these retail bogans. I can’t believe we West Australian’s have allowed this kind of shite to go on for so long. As for Rug Man I’m pretty happy we don’t have to listen to him crap on about how much he was discounting his stock. It reminds me of the January sales concept. 50% off and we’ll still taking you to the cleaners so imagine what the margins are leading up to Christmas… for fuck sake. Then they all bitch about how little money they are making.
Happy New Year XOX
I miss Goldie the Labrador for Holden. Ah, ironic bad.
Move over Rug Man and Co. There’s a new challenger in town. Ex 7 news reader Peter Waltham. He’s doing a diabolical job flogging false choppers on TV at the moment, but I’m sure that with a little help he and the client could plunge to new depths of annoyingly bad advertising.
CB Award predictions (cos there’s not comments in that thread CB)
TV – HBF
Radio – Murdoch
Press – Burswood or Ikea
press campaign life saving drink and drown
Online. Jesus
Outdoor – life saving drink and drown
Agency of the Year – Meerkats
Campaign of Y – RAC
Eye’ll spy Outdoor World on here any time soon