Local Politics. Who did your ad?

I really wanted to avoid anything political on this blog but where this question affects an industry that calls on me to do work for them (ie Media Production houses), I wanted to see what kind of response i’d get. 

As with any election that will be taking place in any area where unemployment is in double digits, there is always a party who tries to imply they have the magic bullet to fix the problem or at least make it a lot better. And they stand up for small business – tax cuts here, payroll incentives there. This is always accompanied by media messages in print, radio or TV. At least in the visual media, you never see credit given to whether or not it was produced locally. So this made me wonder whether or not the parties in play are actually putting their money where their mouth is and hiring home grown talent to get their message out. “I’m So and So, and I endorse this message”. But did the they endorse the skills and talents of local people to make their message come to life in any form of traditional media?

So I posed this question to each of the 5 parties involved in this election through their websites or FB pages:

“I have a question regarding your media campaign production. How much of your ad production for print, radio, and TV is actually done by talented people in NB? I am asking the same question of the A, B, C, D and F , as well. Thanks, Rick”

I ask this question not because I am directly looking for one of them to hire me as a VO for one of their ads. Its not to audition, beg for work or even so much as solicit.. As a matter of fact, I just want to know what they are doing for a small segment of our economy owned usually by small business owners. These small business owners are the ones who call on me to voice for projects. So indirectly, yes, I am asking this question for my benefit. It should also be a question for anyone that benefits from small business owners and the activities of their enterprises here in New Brunswick .

In the interest of disclosure, I am a card carrying member of one of the five parties in the election. Despite that, I’m still undecided. 

So, being a Friday before Labour day, I’ll sit back and wait for a response from each of them as I toil away at my full time job all weekend. I will post the answers, if any, on here.

 

Have a great Long Weekend, Be Safe, Don’t Drink and Drive.

 

Rick

Automated Phone Answering Systems – They should have a professional sound, right?

We’ve all had to call somewhere for some type of business that needs to be done over telephone. Some businesses prefer to have a live voice answer and others prefer to have an automated answering service sort out the call flows. When they choose the latter, they usually use recorded speech to guide the caller through their options. Usually, its pretty straight forward and not hard to listen to. Other times it sounds like a hung over intern or someone who dreads even talking into a phone. Sometimes, you almost want to call back just to hear it again (rare, but it happens) . Tell me what you think of these A.P.A.S. below in the poll that follows: