I made an acquaintance who happens to work at an advertising firm. I may have strained my relationship with said acquaintance by pestering him to get me a job there. These are the ideas I pitched. (My feelings will be irreparably hurt if he does not steal at least one of them.)

Minivan Commercial

A soccer mom loads her kids into a minivan *insert make and model here. She drives them to a soccer field.

The kids sit on the bleachers. The mom takes off her slacks (we’ll try not to oversexualize this part). She’s wearing shin guards, any color but pink, that would hurt our progressive cred.

It’s an intramural soccer league, assuming intramural means what I think it means. The mom scores a goal. Her kids cheer her on.

CUT TO the minivan. It’s looking stylish but safe, like a defanged vampire or a traffic cone with a Fu Manchu mustache.

Slogan: Now it’s her turn to play.

Funeral Home Radio Spot

This one is sad but sure to play well with the children of eccentrics, misanthropes, and other assholes.

A teenaged voice actor describes how, on the day of his father’s visitation, he wanders into another room at the funeral home. An undertaker is in there, either fluffing pillows or mopping up death juice.

The teen expected to be kicked out or scolded or maybe molested. Instead, the undertaker treats him with respect. I’m sure that’s happened once or twice.

The teen says that his father didn’t even like most of the people at the visitation. The undertaker drops this t. bomb: some of them probably didn’t like his father, either, but they came to pay their respect, anyway.

(An undertaker would never say this in real life for fear of getting fired, or, if the eldest son in a Blank & Sons arrangement, a bad Yelp review.)

The teen tells us he never forgot that moment. “[That undertaker] didn’t talk down to me, he lifted me up.”

I feel this will be suitably sappy, unless the listener assumes the undertaker literally lifted the young man up. But we’re only marketing majors, right, we can’t account for how many Lifetime movies your clinically depressed stepmother made you watch.

DJ Set Poster

A big, neckbearded face with a pensive expression, perhaps propping itself up via an embarrassingly smooth palm.

I wonder where, the face asks itself, forgetting some connecting words,

CUTE DRUNK HIPSTERS???

Beneath that, we’ll have some art school dropout design a row of three tiny cigarettes, smoking, as a sort of page border. (In certain states, we can leave the filter off and pretend these are joints.)

And below that goes the the really minor information, such as venue name, location, time and date, cover price, and, assuming there is room, what the DJs’ names are.

Note: This design will work with any kind of music but electronic dance music tends to have the cutest, drunkest, hipsteriest fans. Our demographic’s major demographic, that and controversial positions about comic book films.

Head Shop Billboard

Three words:

Isn’t this sign HIGH?

Addendum to Head Shop Billboard

Maybe we should put the address in there somewhere.

Breakfast Cereal YouTube Ad

A soccer mom loads her kids into a minivan. She drives them to a soccer field.

The kids sit on the bleachers. The mom takes off her slacks. She’s wearing shin guards.

The breakfast mascot, whatever brand we’re hocking, suddenly appears.

The mascot knocks the soccer mom out with a single foam-fisted punch. Turns to the camera.

“I know you just want to watch your video.”

The mascot pauses.

“And eat cereal.”

It winks.

---

Lee Blevins lives in Lexington, KY. You can follow him on Twitter @BleeSevens or visit his sad, bare-bones website byleeblevins.com