Donny Brooks, President of The Gay

“Hi, I’m Bonnie Brooks, President of The Bay.“  How many times have you heard that on the radio?  Well, if you’re in Canada, probably A LOT.  The unmistakable commercials by the President of North America’s oldest department store, HBC (Hudson’s Bay Company, better known as The Bay) has been making bland, straight-to-the-point radio commercials for the company since she took over a couple years ago.  With almost 100 stores across Canada, she needs to market her company all over the country, and does simply using her voice.

Take a listen here:

As far as I can tell, the most effective part of the commercials is how they create conversation among people with how much they hate hearing them, how they change the station when they’re on, and how dull/flat/monotone/old the voice sounds.  Why no music?  Why no clever writing?  Why no… anything advertising students learn in their first class in college?

But the fact that they’re being talked about is something… and enough of a something for me to do a spoof.    Besides, how much easier can you get?  With no added music, effects, or voices added this was a no brainer for a quick turnaround.  Sticking with the theme that seems to be the most successful for me, I’ve gone ahead and gay-a-nized (ya, I just made that up) the scripting to make it more homolicious (that one might be a real word… if not, it should be).

Take a look/listen:

I was seriously shocked to find that The Bay doesn’t have a (fan) page on Facebook.  At all.  The closest thing was a page set up by someone else who herself just claims to be someone who really likes the store (with just under 550 “likes”).  And their Twitter presence is almost a joke with under 750 followers and no @replies to anyone in their timeline as far as I can see.  Don’t get me wrong, for a regular person to have 750 followers would be great, but this is a Canadian icon, a store that was actually here before Canada even was, a business that’s in most of the cities throughout the country.  I really shouldn’t have three times as many “likes” on Facebook and twice as many Twitter followers as they do.

So as much as Bonnie Brooks seems to want to bring The Bay into the 21st century and make it appealing to people my age or younger, she really needs to reconsider her yawnful radio ads and consider jumping into what I already thought was a no brainer for any corporation – social media.

In fact Bonnie, if you’re reading this (which I’m sure she isn’t since her company obviously knows little about what’s going on online) I’d be happy to help you join the mom & pop shops who are racking up “likes” on Facebook and engaging with their customers on Twitter.  I’m sure with a little effort I could make you almost as popular online as someone who makes silly YouTube videos.