I have just watched a Sears commercial for parkas - a typical winter scene (here in Canada anyways) snow falling, shovelling, etc. However, (and this may surprise you Americans) it looks nothing like that here! Trees have started changing colours, but in 95% of the populated part of Canada, it just looks like fall, no big snow, etc. (I’m assuming the freak snow in Alberta earlier has already melted). This isn’t the only one, I’ve seen a few that feature winter scenes when it’s not winter.
This makes me wonder, how are commercials like that made? They obviously didn’t tape them recently (at least not outside) as it’s not winter weather. I don’t think it’s green screen, as the shovelled snow, etc, looks a bit too real. (This is probably the most likely explanation, but as I said, I’ve seen others, like demonstrating cars in winter weather.) It couldn’t’ have been taped last winter because a) it’s advertising this year’s parka/car, and b) why not just release the ads last year to sell the product faster? And I highly doubt they flew to Australia in our summer, as their winters don’t quite look like that and that’s too much money just for an ad.
I’m sure it’s something obvious (as I said, green screen seems likely, at least for that ad, but that doesn’t explain the car driving in snow) as I’m not the brightest Doper in the Doperbox (or whatever you call it), but I can’t think of it.
I don’t know how the ad was made, but you wouldn’t have to fly to somewhere with the right weather conditions in order to make the ad there; you’d just have to send out a bunch of the parkas. Everything else you need - cameras, technicians, directors, actors - can be sourced locally (and possibly more cheaply than in your home market).
And, if the ad was made locally, but (say) last January , why not broadcast it starting last February? Because the ad is made in support of sale campaign which, for good seasonal reasons, is being run now, and not last February. Marketing parkas in February in the Northern hemisphere is not terribly effective; it’s much easier to persuade people to buy them in October/November. And I think the expensive part of TV advertising is not making the ad; it’s broadcasting it. All you’d acheive by broadcasting it in February would be to diminish its impact when broadcast in November.