Brainco-2One of the many nice things about working in the biz of advertising and communications is that we get to see, directly, how our field attracts young, fresh, hungry minds who are curious about how to speak to the masses, creatively.

Additionally, it’s nice for us to support a local school, Brainco, that for years has churned out some of the finest creative talent that you now see dotting the ad landscape across the country.

Casey Brewer, the teacher of this radio class (who is also a superbeast blogger and a brand new hire at Minneapolis Ad Agency Carmichael Lynch) brought in his charges to produce a radio ad for, if this isn’t a masterful show of efficiency, Brainco.

The difficulty in writing or producing a radio ad like this is that the school has become so much more than just, quote unquote, “another ad school”. So with many masters and interests to serve, the class was given the assignment to write an ad that would speak to the broad audience that the school is looking to attract. The winning ad, written by student Michelle Swanson (see photo), was distinct from the others that were submitted in that it had a higher concept to it – picking on and successfully skewering the illimitable purveyance of pharmaceutical ads that saturate the broadcast media these days. Plus, y’know, in the final analysis – the spot’s funny.

A significant part of the credit for making the spot humorous is that Minneapolis voice-over talent David Allen (from Talent Poole) completely got the concept from the beginning – dripping with über sincerity when it was needed, and then sliding into feigned detached indifference when delivering the tongue-in-cheek-disclaimer. Along with the completely euro-trash music – the combo just felt “right”. Or, “perfectly wrong” (depending on your perspective).

Casey offered this to say about the experience –

Being able to record a spot as a student is not only an important learning process, but it’s a great opportunity to show prospective employers that you have the experience necessary to dive in to radio assignments right out of the gate. It was a good experience for me while I was in school, and I’m very appreciative of Babble-On for offering the same experience to my students.

Michelle’s script had both a nice, solid concept and the kind of messaging Brainco wanted to get across to listeners. That, and it turned out really funny. Which is nice.

Kudos should be given to all the students – Max Bayram, Theresa LaGuardia, Kelli Wilkerson, Chris Yocum and Nick Nelson who asked good questions, made helpful observations, and tolerated a studio owner with a penchant for excessive chattiness.

Heres the spot entitled, “Creative Edge”. If you’d like to listen to more radio ads – please check out our samples page.

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