WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-Amped-up ads

South Burlington, Vermont - February 5, 2010

A transformation is underway in a former car rental office in South Burlington. A 2-man team is making the space into a set for a TV commercial.

Randy Morits manages the detailing department at Heritage Ford & Toyota. He has a new role as the dealerships' pitchman.

"A lot of retail customers come back," Morits told the camera.

"It's great to take the everyday person and put them on a pedestal," commercial producer Andy Rosenthal said.

That's the idea behind Mt. Mansfield Media's cinematic advertising campaign for Heritage. Morits is presented as a guy who turned down a presidential run because caring for cars at Heritage is just too good a gig. The agency's putting pressure on itself to produce a commercial big enough for the Super Bowl.

"People expect to be entertained," Jake Cunavelis said. Cunavelis launched Mt. Mansfield Media in 2006-- leaving WCAX after 15 years as a salesman.

"Advertising can't save a bad restaurant with bad service and bad food," Cunavelis said.

But it can, Cunavelis says, push a company that already has a solid business plan to the next level of visibility with the public.

In the case of his Super Bowl spot, he hopes the special effect of a Harrier jet landing on a car lot will be eye-catching, but not distracting from his client's core message: that people like Morits are the Heritage experience.

"We're trying to entertain people on the surface level but push the agenda and strategy of the company as the meat of the product," Rosenthal explained.

Champlain College marketing professor Jay McKee points to a 1984 ad for the Apple Macintosh as what set the bar for Super Bowl commercials. It looks and feels like a dramatic climax of a movie.

"It should be partly emotional and partly rational," McKee said.

For many, Super Bowl ads are now part of the enjoyment of the big night, with memorable gags, big stars, and budgets to match. CBS should easily pocket $200 million off ad sales, with WCAX charging its highest rates of the year-- several thousand dollars for the handful of 30-second local ads you'll see.

"I look for how really clever they are," McKee said.

McKee says the best ads will stick with the show's nearly 100 million viewers the next day.

At Mt. Mansfield Media new computer editing software has helped producers create a Los Angeles look, while staying Made in Vermont.

"It's all something that 10 years ago would have been much more difficult in terms of the dollars," Rosenthal said.

Randy Morits hopes he scores a touchdown in his TV debut on the biggest stage on television.

"I'm looking forward to seeing it come on!" Morits said. "It was fun to do!"

The complete ad will debut in the Super Bowl starting at 6:30 p.m. on Channel 3.

Jack Thurston - WCAX News - Made in Vermont