PlazaJen: Passion Knit

As we were discussing some costs and pricing ideas for a client, talk of how much a television spot would cost to produce came up. (Making television spots is really one of those huge gradations between "really awful Hi-8 filmstrip with badly dressed business owner starring in ad" to "CGI technicolor rainbows and extremely expensive actor as spokesperson". Basically, you can range between $5,000 and half a million dollars, and in most situations, you get what you pay for. (Though, admittedly, there have been numerous, really-expensive ads that completely missed their mark.)

Anyway, someone said, well, start with $100,000? And we're trying to determine how the costs relate to our media budgets, because it doesn't do a lot of good to spend $100k on a tv spot you can't afford to air, and so this conversation was sort of going around and around and at first, I thought the 100 grand was kind of high, until I was struck by a thought (and of course, I said it out loud), "I mean, $100 grand? That's not that bad, when you consider you can spend $80 grand on HOOKERS."

Not that we'll use that logic if the client asks, but I'm still agog at spending the monetary equivalent of a nice SUV, a good boat, a nice chunk in savings and an all-inclusive vacation for two on hos. Or just one ho and a madam, who you KNOW is getting a really kick-ass cut of that money. You get my drift. Many a television spot has been made for less.

Still shaking my head....but I DID love the interview on NPR with an Albany madam, who was pissed he, the governor who advocated keeping dollars in-state, took his business to D.C..... (you have to click on "listen" to hear it, it's not in the article - and it's about 3 mins in.)