A friend just showed me this and I was quite impressed! I've never seen a Walmart commercial anywhere remotely close to this so I thought I'd share here where fellow video professionals could appreciate it. I'm not a big fan of CGI and it clearly has a lot but it's a well done and fun way to integrate all those famous characters and vehicles through the decades.
So excluding all the licensing involved what would be a fair rate to charge for the production of this?
New Walmart commercial - wow!
- Thread starter firehawk
- Start date
puredrifting
Major Contributor
Taking a step back, that is a really weird commercial based upon their target audience's needs and wants of this new service. But whatevs.
Having worked with some of the larger ad agencies over the years, this sounds like it was a fantastical pitch but I'm surprised the fairly conservative client went for it.
In the end, I guess it would gather buzz for fans of movie vehicle concepts but for the working Mom who typically does the grocery shopping in the
nuclear family, I would think they wouldn't really get or care about this. Weird concept based upon the product. I'd be much more interested in what the service is and
how it works rather than seeing a bunch of movie car concepts converging in a parking lot where you really learn little about what the service is and how it works and
what it does to make your life better and easier. Biut that's mass marketing and advertisement that more often misses the mark than hits it.
Having worked with some of the larger ad agencies over the years, this sounds like it was a fantastical pitch but I'm surprised the fairly conservative client went for it.
In the end, I guess it would gather buzz for fans of movie vehicle concepts but for the working Mom who typically does the grocery shopping in the
nuclear family, I would think they wouldn't really get or care about this. Weird concept based upon the product. I'd be much more interested in what the service is and
how it works rather than seeing a bunch of movie car concepts converging in a parking lot where you really learn little about what the service is and how it works and
what it does to make your life better and easier. Biut that's mass marketing and advertisement that more often misses the mark than hits it.
NorBro
Major Contributor
You want to know more about how a grocery pick-up service works? lol
The content and target audience match; people in their mid-30s, 40s, maybe early-50s.
Looking way too deep into it...it's creative entertainment for a simple service. This is the kind of stuff that Disney would do (worldwide appeal).
The content and target audience match; people in their mid-30s, 40s, maybe early-50s.
Looking way too deep into it...it's creative entertainment for a simple service. This is the kind of stuff that Disney would do (worldwide appeal).
Pretty sure the target demo for this ad is NOT moms who already grocery shop, it's millenials. Their competition is Amazon.
I was quite surprised to see them do a commercial like this. I agree with you all.
On one hand it's pretty much just a pure fun ad. They've previously made ads promoting the grocery pickup that were more catered to their common customer. Such ads showed a young sweet faced employee careful not to wake the sleeping baby in Daddy's car while she carefully delivered the products to him. Those ads demonstrated how it worked- place an order, park, make a call, wait and here comes the friendly associate with your stuff. The new ad will get noticed and shared by a wide age group from Flintstones fans to Transformers to Cinderella. When's the last time you heard someone talk about a Walmart ad??
On the other hand this new ad really goes against their traditional grain. The production is astronomically higher in comparison with anything I've seen them do of course...but also...
They have near mayhem occurring in their parking lot that is not characteristic at all of how they want customers to be nor danger to employees.
-Batman doesn't park and wait for his goods: No, he shoots a grappling/spear thing and just snatches it as he drives by.
-Slimer slimes an employee.
-The Dumb & Dumber van ramps and crashes through lot foilage coming to a skidding wheelie stop in the parking space.
-The Knight Rider K.I.T.T. Trans Am burns rubber and pulls out of the lot sideways in traffic.
- An employee is nearly attacked by deadly velociraptors.
- Luggage is crashing to the ground as the Griswold station wagon pulls away....and more
Yet if you cast all that aside it's pure fun seeing the employees do what they do trying to serve the wide variety of customers regardless of the vehicle they use to get there.
It was creative to let the characters tell the message with the Back to the Future Time Machine Delorean landing as K.I.T.T says "it's the future, Michael" conveying that grocery pickup is the future of retail/shopping
On one hand it's pretty much just a pure fun ad. They've previously made ads promoting the grocery pickup that were more catered to their common customer. Such ads showed a young sweet faced employee careful not to wake the sleeping baby in Daddy's car while she carefully delivered the products to him. Those ads demonstrated how it worked- place an order, park, make a call, wait and here comes the friendly associate with your stuff. The new ad will get noticed and shared by a wide age group from Flintstones fans to Transformers to Cinderella. When's the last time you heard someone talk about a Walmart ad??
On the other hand this new ad really goes against their traditional grain. The production is astronomically higher in comparison with anything I've seen them do of course...but also...
They have near mayhem occurring in their parking lot that is not characteristic at all of how they want customers to be nor danger to employees.
-Batman doesn't park and wait for his goods: No, he shoots a grappling/spear thing and just snatches it as he drives by.
-Slimer slimes an employee.
-The Dumb & Dumber van ramps and crashes through lot foilage coming to a skidding wheelie stop in the parking space.
-The Knight Rider K.I.T.T. Trans Am burns rubber and pulls out of the lot sideways in traffic.
- An employee is nearly attacked by deadly velociraptors.
- Luggage is crashing to the ground as the Griswold station wagon pulls away....and more
Yet if you cast all that aside it's pure fun seeing the employees do what they do trying to serve the wide variety of customers regardless of the vehicle they use to get there.
It was creative to let the characters tell the message with the Back to the Future Time Machine Delorean landing as K.I.T.T says "it's the future, Michael" conveying that grocery pickup is the future of retail/shopping
NorBro
Major Contributor
They are just reproducing what happens in those movies/shows/cartoons...people are a bit less sensitive to that.
These were probably expensive in their time too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LC60F9cZSs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXtFO14RkTc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ruc4Zksnk4
These were probably expensive in their time too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LC60F9cZSs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXtFO14RkTc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ruc4Zksnk4
Yes and that's how they get away with it without offending people. It's OK for a TV car to stunt drive at walmart since you expect it. That's what they do etc...
I imagine the Dukes of Hazzard General Lee would have been used since it's arguably more famous than any of those vehicles if not for the recent wave of hate towards it.
Good point and yes they were. I had not seen those (I seldom watch TV at all). However there is a little difference in that 2(?) of those other ads were also promoting a movie coming out so that was highly beneficial to the license holders. This new ad pretty much stirs up fond memories without directly promoting anything new for anyone but Walmart. So I expect that makes a difference in licensing costs.
Thanks for sharing and I see that Walmart does reach out of their box from time to time.
NorBro
Major Contributor
At this level, anything they do benefits anyone involved, ha.
There is so much money being made.
Even with this new commercial: Although there is no direct movie promotion, kids will see the commercial and will want to go to Walmart where they will have most of these toys and movies readily available...maybe even by the entrance.
There is so much money being made.
Even with this new commercial: Although there is no direct movie promotion, kids will see the commercial and will want to go to Walmart where they will have most of these toys and movies readily available...maybe even by the entrance.
puredrifting
Major Contributor
Guess that's why I don't watch TV anymore...I showed this to my Millenial kids and they had the same questions I did but none of us saw the earlier spots where they explained all that Firehawk alludes to. Commercials have changed a lot since I last worked on national spots in the early 2000s.
Yeah we probably are digging into this too deep but it's interesting nonetheless.
I stepped back and looked at it from the perspective of not being aware of the pickup service. In that light the spot is a bit odd. It appears that employees are just helping take goods out to customer cars as has been done for decades at many companies. Nothing special, except all these unusual vehicles and occurrences they are dealing with which make no sense other than the vehicles are recognizable from TV & film.
1. So if you don't already know about the pickup service does this inform you of it very well? Probably not.
2. Does the spot make you want to go to walmart? I don't know. Why would it?
3. Does it entertain and leave the viewer with a positive feeling? Probably.
4. Will it ultimately make them more money and be worth the investment of creating it? That is really the objective. I don't know.
I stepped back and looked at it from the perspective of not being aware of the pickup service. In that light the spot is a bit odd. It appears that employees are just helping take goods out to customer cars as has been done for decades at many companies. Nothing special, except all these unusual vehicles and occurrences they are dealing with which make no sense other than the vehicles are recognizable from TV & film.
1. So if you don't already know about the pickup service does this inform you of it very well? Probably not.
2. Does the spot make you want to go to walmart? I don't know. Why would it?
3. Does it entertain and leave the viewer with a positive feeling? Probably.
4. Will it ultimately make them more money and be worth the investment of creating it? That is really the objective. I don't know.
I suppose a main reason I like the ad is that is the type of thing I tend to think up but don't have the opportunity to do.
I got to thinking, what would be a fair price to charge for creating that?
What would the licensing cost?
The licensing would probably be impossible to estimate but some of you work on projects like that so I was hoping to get an idea of a fair rate to charge for the production/post of something like that.
It would probably take me a whole year working solo on the post for that which obviously would never be acceptable as they probably wanted it in days. 3D models could be bought from Turbosquid and most for around a couple hundred dollars each. Then they have to be licensed. Then I looked at how to shoot all those moving shots with the intent of adding all the CGI marriage. And then all the sound. It's a whole lot of work putting all that together.
I got to thinking, what would be a fair price to charge for creating that?
What would the licensing cost?
The licensing would probably be impossible to estimate but some of you work on projects like that so I was hoping to get an idea of a fair rate to charge for the production/post of something like that.
It would probably take me a whole year working solo on the post for that which obviously would never be acceptable as they probably wanted it in days. 3D models could be bought from Turbosquid and most for around a couple hundred dollars each. Then they have to be licensed. Then I looked at how to shoot all those moving shots with the intent of adding all the CGI marriage. And then all the sound. It's a whole lot of work putting all that together.
NorBro
Major Contributor
There are hundreds of commercials that don't make any direct sense or are completely out-of-this-world irrelevant to what the businesses do.
Here's the big picture...when you're making billions of dollars this is just part of the process. There doesn't have to be a rhyme or reason.
It's pure entertainment for this particular service they offer (they very well could have picked one out of a hat) and rolled with this idea in an effort to continue growing their monster corporation.
Here's the big picture...when you're making billions of dollars this is just part of the process. There doesn't have to be a rhyme or reason.
It's pure entertainment for this particular service they offer (they very well could have picked one out of a hat) and rolled with this idea in an effort to continue growing their monster corporation.
NorBro
Major Contributor
And no one's going to know how much it cost them. Or maybe even what a fair price would be - with or without licensing.
Walmart could have an in-house team that does everything and then it's just part of everyone's salaries. I mentioned $500K+ in my first post, but if someone knows how to do all of this then maybe they would be happy with $50K.
Walmart could have an in-house team that does everything and then it's just part of everyone's salaries. I mentioned $500K+ in my first post, but if someone knows how to do all of this then maybe they would be happy with $50K.
I don't know presently, but in the past we've helped with some of their spots. From what I've seen and heard WM has an in-house production team but they do not do the TV ads. They hire outsiders for that. Production guys flew in light from CA and then hired people from local companies to help with the production. They usually brought Canon 5D3 with them. I was amazed they were using such cheap cameras. One time they even rented a lowly Canon 7D from us.
So what I expect is WM uses different companies depending on scope or who's making the decision?
None of that really matters, though. Whenever I see something impressive whether it's a high end Ford commercial or this Walmart ad I always wonder...what would that cost?
And since I've never produced (yet) anything that expensive and some people here likely have I was hoping to get an idea.
Aren't some of you curious too when you see a high end production?
Thanks everyone for the discussion too. It's great to visit while I wait on renders.