ADVERTISING & MARKETING : Winning Ad’s Emotional Message Is Heard Loud and Clear

Are emotional TV ads making a comeback in the age of the edgy, MTV-style spot?

The answer appears to be yes, as Snap.com won an Emmy on Saturday for a heart-tugging spot in which a boy struggles to teach himself sign language so he can communicate with a deaf schoolmate.

“New Friend” was produced by the Gartner agency in Santa Monica and created by NBC On-Air Promotions, the in-house agency for NBC, which is a part-owner of Snap.com. Ray Dillman, who joined Gartner last year, directed the spot, which was written by Mark Bennett.

The commercial opens with Tommy, portrayed by 12-year-old actor Will Rothhaar, observing a boy and his mother sign goodbye outside a school bus. Tommy watches the deaf boy, played by Gianni Manganelli, enter the bus and walk past him, greeting no one. Later, Tommy sits at his computer and goes to the Snap.com site, where he looks up sign language. The next day, Tommy taps the deaf boy on the shoulder and painstakingly introduces himself by signing. The deaf boy then signs back.

The Times talked with Gartner’s Rich Carter, executive producer of the spot.

Q: What was Snap.com’s mission in creating the ad?

A: They took a good, hard look at what the competition was doing in terms of the actual commercials, and they felt everyone else was going for a narrow segment of the Internet market with . . . really hip and somewhat trendy types of advertising, [and that] to stand out and reach more of the market, they should go for something emotional and appealing to a wider spectrum of people.

Q: What makes the ad work emotionally?

A: I think the real success of the commercial was the genuineness of it. And it really started with one of the first decisions that was made--to find a boy who was deaf and cast him as the lead actor. On top of that, we picked another boy who has done quite a few spots but isn’t a real actor-type kid to play the part of Tommy. We didn’t allow him to learn sign language until he was with us on the set. He was actually doing it for the first time with that little boy as we captured it on film.

Q: What qualities did you look for in your two actors?

A: You have to find kids who are naturally compassionate. In the case of Tommy, you can’t just take a kid who you like his look and tell him to act like he feels for the child. In the case of the deaf kid, we had to find a kid who was brave but not cocky. We didn’t want to feel sorry for him.

Q: There’s no dialogue in this spot, except for the end when Tommy signs. What were the challenges of working with the actors from that perspective?

A: It relies on the relationship between Ray, the director, and the kids. A lot of times he actually would be playing the other part and talking the kids through the emotions. There really was no way to add any dialogue because the whole point of the story was this whole buildup about communication.

Q: Are commercials with emotional content coming back in style? Or did they never really go out?

A: I’ve worked with another director who does this kind of work--James Gartner--and he’s been very successful. [James Gartner is a co-founder of Gartner.] He and Ray do the same type of thing. They’ve stuck to their guns and avoided any trendy zigzags in their careers. I really hope emotional content is coming back, and the fact it won an Emmy is pretty convincing evidence of it.