Niche Advertising

Ok, I don't normally watch hunting shows on Saturday mornings, but I brought my car in for a tune up and on the TV in the waiting room is this hunting show on Global that I can't remember the name of, and during the commercial breaks I catch a couple of hunting goods commercials.

More specifically, commercials for hunting weapons. One was for a hunting rifle made by a company called Terra, and the other for a crossbow bolt called Excalibur. In both commercials, a lone male hunter is about in the woods stalking his prey. The prey happens to be deer in both commercials, and as the hunter is taking aim and about to fire, the benefits of each weapon are extolled by a narrator. I liked the fact that in the rifle commercial the hunter takes out a big male buck deer (they don't show the deer being taken down for obvious reasons I think) and then proudly carrying off the horns as a trophy (again, skip past the messy part!) In the other commercial the hunter doesn't seem to succeed in taking down the deer with a crossbow bolt which was a little confusing, though perhaps the idea is the bolt didn't kill the deer outright.

So, what is interesting about these commercials? I don't think they were highly 'creative' per say, though I think if you could make a hunting rifle commercial creative without being absurd or blatantly offensive, more power to you! Aside from any PETA types being horrified, it is quite clear that the aforementioned products would not be advertised, and I have not seen advertised in any other time slot and/or when a non hunting show is airing. There were other non specific commercials mixed with the hunting related commercials, but this shows that certain products are only going to be suitable to be advertised in tandem with a specific TV show.

I also know that the price for a 30 second spot on Saturday morning is pretty cheap compared to prime time slots, and the audience in question for that show is the audience those products would want to be advertised to, no matter how small said audience might be.

In the end, I think I might have to watch a few more fishing and hunting shows just to see what other commercials I might come across.

In the meantime, this is Billy Bobby signing off with "I'm goin' Waterhorse huntin' with my brand new Excalibur Crossbow!" Love that smooth recoil action!