Commercial to tell Ho-Ho Express story

[Mouse7088]

I just saw the commercial for the first time this evening...I just had to read more about it and thought I'd share of course.....

[Only registered and activated users can see links. Either login above or Register Now]

"Commercial to tell Ho-Ho Express story

by Rob Ruth

For years Santa Joe Malay’s Ho-Ho Express has been giving Weiser people an extra reason to feel good about Christmas and for the community to feel good about itself.

During the Christmas season of 2002, those good feelings will be shared with television viewers nationwide.

Santa Joe and Ho-Ho are the subject of a 30-second Wal-Mart commercial slated to air from late November through Dec. 22. Malay (right) takes a break in the shade during shooting Thursday morning. The temperature in Weiser reached 100 degrees Thursday afternoon.

Weiserites who are brand new to the local area or who have only recently awakened from a decade-long coma probably constitute the bulk of local readers who don’t know about the Ho-Ho Express, a program benefiting kids from low-income households. Each year, with financial help from hundreds of area individuals and businesses, Santa Joe and dozens of adult helper "elves" are able to take several busloads of kids on a Christmas shopping spree. The kids are always at liberty to spend most or all of their shopping spree money on themselves, but almost invariably the young shoppers choose to buy items mainly for family members instead.

In Ho-Ho’s early years, the buses made multiple stops at stores in Weiser. It’s no secret that the town’s retail base has undergone a long period of erosion, however, and by the time the process reached the point where the last store specializing in new clothing had closed its doors, Malay knew he’d have to start taking the kids out of town. He opted for a single stop in Ontario — at Wal-Mart, where the kids would find a wide selection of goods.

The Wal-Mart store has been more than accommodating, annually donating $1,000 to Ho-Ho Express from the store’s approximately 21,000-dollar community grants budget. "It’s so awesome that the store can do so much for them every year," said Personnel Manager Karan Morse, who administers the grants budget. And like most people who’ve been associated with Ho-Ho Ex-press, Morse is struck by the kids’ unselfishness. "Some buy groceries," she said. "It’s so touching."

Earlier this year, when Kansas City, Mo.-based Bernstein-Rein Advertising Inc. — one of Wal-Mart’s advertising agencies — put out a call throughout the chain for stories about stores’ Christmas season community involvement, Morse relished responding. She wrote a letter in April and by the end of May she realized that Weiser’s Ho-Ho Express and the Ontario store would be in the national spotlight come Christmas of 2002. "They were just so impressed at what we did," Morse said.

The commercial was taped in Weiser and Ontario on Thursday and Friday of last week.

Brock Campbell, an account executive for Bernstein-Rein, said the 30-second spot will tell the story of the Ho-Ho Express kids’ day, including their bus trip from Weiser to Ontario, and of course the shopping activity at their destination. The production crew (from Paddock O’Farrell Films, Kansas City, Mo.) spent much of Thursday morning filming interviews with three children who have ridden the Ho-Ho Express. The interviews took place at the top of Valley View Drive, and later in the morning the crew set up a camera in a nearby field — just north of Oltman Road — to get some footage of a line of police-escorted buses traveling downhill from the top of the private road which runs north from Oltman’s southern end.

In addition to interviews of the kids, Campbell said the commercial would also probably include material from interviews of Morse and of Santa Joe himself, whom Campbell said had been instrumental in lining up the right kids for the commercial, which not only features three young interviewees, but has a few dozen young "extras" as well.

As individuals featured prominently, the three youngsters interviewed in the commercial will be paid based on the industry’s union scale, Campbell said. He said the extras would receive a token sum called a "one-time nominal."

Campbell said Wal-Mart’s Christmas season television advertising typically includes two different commercial messages. One is a "savings" message, the other a "feel-good" story focusing on the spirit of the season. The Ho-Ho Express commercial will be this year’s feel-good story, of course.

"What made the story compelling for us was those that benefit, and that would be the kids, the fact that we’ve got a great, great personality here (Malay) whose passion is helping kids, and the partnership between [Ho-Ho Express and Wal-Mart]." Campbell added that the story "can be naturally told from the real people approach" taken in Wal-Mart commercials.

Shooting was scheduled for two 12-hour shifts last week. A director from Los Angeles, Shane Hurlbut, was in charge.

Campbell declined to say how much had been budgeted to produce the commercial, but he said it was "below industry standard," which is in keeping with Wal-Mart’s own low-price philosophy. "We really strive to keep our everyday low cost just as Wal-Mart does," he said."


__________________

[Only registered and activated users can see links. Either login above or Register Now]

[Only registered and activated users can see links. Either login above or Register Now]

Check out these [Only registered and activated users can see links. Either login above or Register Now], or go directly to [Only registered and activated users can see links. Either login above or Register Now]
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Either login above or Register Now] EXP: 12.15.2002
Click through to save $15 off of your electronics purchase of $175 or more at Buy.com.

Check out these [Only registered and activated users can see links. Either login above or Register Now], or go directly to [Only registered and activated users can see links. Either login above or Register Now]
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Either login above or Register Now] EXP: 12.25.2002
Save 20% off of your purchase at ICE.com with coupon code BCD20-399093.

[Only registered and activated users can see links. Either login above or Register Now]