A Wild Young Under-Whimsy

I do not work in advertising. Today I was cleaning out my room in preparation for moving house, and I discovered all sorts of treasures, including some assignments from my days at RMIT. One of these I would like to share with you. It was for my third-year Copywriting Workshops class. I majored in copywriting. Here is the creative brief:

CREATIVE BRIEF

Client: Thermotek
Remove dints and scratches and chips from cars; detail your car inside and out and respray the car, for $1000. They do all this in 24 hours. They can match any colour. Gives your car "a new lease of life". They have about 12 branches.

Target Audience:
1. Someone with a reasonably valuable car in poor condition, which they would like redone so they can sell it.
2. Someone whose car is starting to look a bit tatty, but they don't want to sell it.

Main Benefit
Give your car a new lease of life.

Media
Local press, radio.

I came up with three campaign concepts. The first one was like, you know how you show the client something outrageous first to make them more receptive to your other ideas? I went on a field trip to a now-defunct South Melbourne agency, and they showed an ad for fruit-flavoured condoms which consisted of a guy sucking himself off with the line, "Eat more fruit." We were aghast and said, "How the fuck did you get that past the client??" They just smiled and showed us a concept sketch of a guy with half a kiwifruit stuck up his arse.

GROWLY MVO
OK kids! Thought it'd be fun to be unemployed - now it's time for you to work for that dole!

KIDS
Groan...

GROWLY
You, Simon! You're on interior detail! Start making those car seats spick'n'span!

SIMON
But -

GROWLY
And Brett, don't think you've got off easy! Start buffing away those scratches from the paintwork!

BRETT
But I'll be here forever!

GROWLY
We said we'd have this car looking like new in 24 hours, and we will!

BRETT
But -

GROWLY
You've got a problem, put it in your dole diary! And Anna, fire up that respray gun! We haven't got all day!

KIDS
Groan...

MVO
You may wonder how Thermotek can afford to give your car a new lease of life for only $1000. The answer is: don't ask. Just call 1800 THERMO for your nearest outlet.

GROWLY
Insulin schminsulin! Get back to scrubbing the windscreen!

I still think that would have been a winner. But I was pipped on the night by Chris's radio ad, which ended with him shouting in a monster-truck rally voice, "Thermotek THERMOTEK THERMO-TEHHHK!" Chris designs websites and t-shirts now.