Admit it: that big ol’ corporation McDonald’s has gotten you hooked with their latest commercial. They’re getting cute now, that MickeyD’s — dropping local references to Lark Street and the Northway and Thaddeus Kosciusko. And that sneaky little TV spot has you somewhat warming up to the notion of a coffee-slinging fast-food chain. Maybe even stirred up an inexplicable thirst for some fresh-brewed Newman’s Own.
The commercial creating so much buzz across the Capital Region was the brainchild of Chris Edwards, the creative director at the Boston advertising agency Arnold Worldwide (you can also thank Edwards for your “I’m into nuggets, y’all; I’m into nuggets, y’all” phase a couple years back) and Sylvia Becker, the marketing manager for the regional McDonald’s office.
“Anyone can claim their coffee is good, but we wanted to highlight what makes our coffee unique,” said Edwards.
There’s actually a scientific reason you crave that McDonald’s-brewed java: Turns out that we in Capital Region – and in New England, more broadly – share a particular taste palate for coffee. We enjoy a light to medium blend roast of coffee here in the northeastern corridor of the States; compare that to Seattle, for example, which prefers a darker blend. (This, according to a “coffee lab” at Green Mountain, the coffee brewing company partnered with McDonald’s.)
So McDonald’s approached Newman’s Own Organics and asked the company to create a specific coffee blend for the New England market.
Four years later, that tried and true blend was still selling at McDonald’s in the Northeast – but the campaign needed a kick. Edwards and team went to work, and came up with the target-local strategy.
“We thought, this coffee isn’t made for everybody – it’s made for certain people,” said Edwards. “So you’ve kinda gotta prove you’re worthy of this prize. We’d like to see you take this test.”
That test came in the form of quirky insider knowledge of the Capital Region. Know the Northway’s got no exit 3? That Lark Street is our Greenwich Village? How to pronounce Kosciusko? You’re in. You get it. You fall under the category of the special few who merit your own special brew.
There were just three television spots made for the Newman’s Own New England roast: two targeted for New England at large, and one for the Albany area.
The ad team was able to generate the New England-isms fairly easily; they were, after all, based in Boston.
“For Albany, it was a little more challenging,” said Edwards. “We knew a couple of people from upstate New York. Luckily, Beth Bullock, our marketing director, is from Albany, so she had some insight for us.”
The team took their Albany fact-finding venture online and found such Internet gems as “You know you’re from Albany if…” lists.
“We dug up a bunch of facts, then tried to cull them down to see which would be the best ones and needed legal clearance for some of them,” said Edwards.
They tested the Albany-isms informally with their upstate New York friends, and when they got a positive response, they immediately began production work.They had one month from the inception of the project to get the commercial on air.
After they hired a director (“We were looking for subtlety, and we wanted to find ones that were good with directing dialogue,” said Edwards), they held auditions for the guy and the girl in the commercial, and ultimately cast Tate Ellington and Eloise Mumford for the parts.
The production headed to Quincy, Massachusetts, to spend the day shooting the commercials. The Albany commercial was shot at a public library.
Based on their IMDb resumes, it’s safe to say Ellington and Mumford can still be categorized as “up-and-coming” (Mumford, incidentally, appeared in Wednesday night’s episode of “Law & Order: SVU”). But it may be that fresh-facedness that translates into the sweet, innocently sly chemistry that makes up so much of the commercial’s appeal.
“We had to tell [Ellington] to tone it down – he was getting a little too flirty,” joked Edwards. “They were good together.”
Not to say the shooting didn’t come without challenges. That Kosciusko bit? It took about 28 tries, Edwards estimated. “Between him saying the letters correctly and her pronouncing it correctly… it took quite a bit of takes,” he said, laughing.
But they nailed it, and the commercial started running September 19th. The 30-second version expired yesterday, but a condensed 15-second spot can be seen on most cable channels in the Albany market, including on CBS 6.
Here are some other ideas that were tossed around for the Albany commercial, according to Edwards:
- April showers bring? (May potholes.)
- Original name for Albany? (Kayaderosseras.) (Yeesh.)
- Five inches of snow? (A dusting.)
- Ichabod Crane in a snowstorm? (Closed. Definitely.)
*****
Hit me: What questions would make up your version of the commercial? Leave a comment below and let me know… or better yet, shoot your own 30-second spot and send it to mkim@wrgb.com! I’ll post them here.
Love the Ichabod Crane Closed one. They definitely should have used that one. That was always the big joke at school when there was any snow. (but I guess it contradicts the “Dusting” one.
I was in Boston last month and I saw the New England spot on tv there, so I thought it was a national gimick, done in EVERY market. I didn’t realize it was just a NY / New England thing. I think I respect it a little bit more now that I know that.
ehhhhh…not really. Kayaderosseras is the name of a creek in Saratoga, and is was an Indian name for the general area around what is now Albany/Saratoga, not the city of Albany. The commercial said “Beverwyck” was also an acceptable answer for that question. I have heard of Beverwyck, but I really think that everyone around Albany knows it as “Fort Orange”.
Isn’t it a bit transparent to show you’re local by doing a local quiz?
My guess is they’re running these in markets across the nation, with local quizzes for each market, to show they’re local. They likely even have a special local blend of newman’s for each market. Sure, it’s the same blend for each market, but it has a different name in each market.
After all, can you name the only coffee bean native to the Capital District?
They’re still airing the commercial (saw it during Big Bang Theory season premiere) … and they’re still pronouncing Kosciuszko wrong. It’s Kuzz-CHOOS-ko (well, at least that’s an American approximation of the Polish).
But the “kaw” sound isn’t exactly like when you say that a crow says “caw,” It’s a shorter, quicker “aw” sound and actually I think it’s better to say that the “o” sound in the Polish language is somewhere in between “aw” and “”u” sound heard in “uh” or “up.”
In English, we have various sounds in vowels, remember learning the “long A” and the “short A”??? The long A as in date, but the short A as in cat. The “long I” vs the “short I” sound, as in night vs knit.
In Polish, the vowel sounds always remain the same. The letter “A” sound is as in Haha, or as in hot. THe letter “E” is sounded like the “e” as in bed, met. The letter “I” is like our “long E” sound in me, be, sea, see. The “O” is described above. The “U” is like our “ooh” And the Polish language treats the letter “Y” as a vowel and it sounds like our short “i” sound as in bit.
Now, there are other “vowel sounds” which, if you looked at the printed words in the Polish language, you’d see little hook like things under the A and the E—sometines—and that changes the sound and it’s difficult to write out, it’s easier to hear the sound.
Now, if only the TV commercial could have the girl properly prounounce Kosciuszko
And the accent (anyone remember accents) is on the second syllable, the “chew” syllable. In the Polish language, the accent is always on the second to the last syllable.
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They did use two of their additional ideas in a different radio spot that’s been airing (the May potholes and a dusting).
[...] a link to a news story with some background on the agency that produced the spots and how they were [...]
Thaddeus Kosciusko???? I work for DOT and I had to google that one! Maybe she should have called it the twins
Love the Ichabod Crane Closed one. They definitely should have used that one. That was always the big joke at school when there was any snow. (but I guess it contradicts the “Dusting” one.
I was in Boston last month and I saw the New England spot on tv there, so I thought it was a national gimick, done in EVERY market. I didn’t realize it was just a NY / New England thing. I think I respect it a little bit more now that I know that.
LouisM – how could you live here and not know T. Kosciusko? He also built some bridges , or helped, in the NYC area and I think in northeast PA.
Maybe a commercial could be made around the Icabod Crane legend or Rip Van Winkle.
I just heard a radio spot with this one:
Original name for Albany? (Kayaderosseras.)
ehhhhh…not really. Kayaderosseras is the name of a creek in Saratoga, and is was an Indian name for the general area around what is now Albany/Saratoga, not the city of Albany. The commercial said “Beverwyck” was also an acceptable answer for that question. I have heard of Beverwyck, but I really think that everyone around Albany knows it as “Fort Orange”.
Isn’t it a bit transparent to show you’re local by doing a local quiz?
My guess is they’re running these in markets across the nation, with local quizzes for each market, to show they’re local. They likely even have a special local blend of newman’s for each market. Sure, it’s the same blend for each market, but it has a different name in each market.
After all, can you name the only coffee bean native to the Capital District?
They’re still airing the commercial (saw it during Big Bang Theory season premiere) … and they’re still pronouncing Kosciuszko wrong. It’s Kuzz-CHOOS-ko (well, at least that’s an American approximation of the Polish).
Acutally the pronunciation really more close to
Kaw shchew shkaw
But the “kaw” sound isn’t exactly like when you say that a crow says “caw,” It’s a shorter, quicker “aw” sound and actually I think it’s better to say that the “o” sound in the Polish language is somewhere in between “aw” and “”u” sound heard in “uh” or “up.”
In English, we have various sounds in vowels, remember learning the “long A” and the “short A”??? The long A as in date, but the short A as in cat. The “long I” vs the “short I” sound, as in night vs knit.
In Polish, the vowel sounds always remain the same. The letter “A” sound is as in Haha, or as in hot. THe letter “E” is sounded like the “e” as in bed, met. The letter “I” is like our “long E” sound in me, be, sea, see. The “O” is described above. The “U” is like our “ooh” And the Polish language treats the letter “Y” as a vowel and it sounds like our short “i” sound as in bit.
Now, there are other “vowel sounds” which, if you looked at the printed words in the Polish language, you’d see little hook like things under the A and the E—sometines—and that changes the sound and it’s difficult to write out, it’s easier to hear the sound.
Now, if only the TV commercial could have the girl properly prounounce Kosciuszko
And the accent (anyone remember accents) is on the second syllable, the “chew” syllable. In the Polish language, the accent is always on the second to the last syllable.