MN Car Dealership Recognized for Hilarious, One-Of-A-Kind TV Ad
Zumbrota Ford agreed to produce the script without having read it ahead of time. The finished commercial made John Oliver's show.
A few months ago, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver did a segment poking fun at car dealership commercials. In it, he noted similarities in local dealership ads that all featured someone dressed as a pickle "in a pickle" about financing. While the ads were for dealerships in Texas, Arizona, Indiana and even Minnesota, they all featured the same corny script featuring a pickle in a pickle. As it turns out, the script was, in fact, written and recycled by the same company, leading Oliver to make a unique offer -- his team would provide a one-of-a-kind commercial script for one lucky car dealership. There was just one condition, however -- the dealership would have to agree to produce the ad without reading the script in advance. Sunday night, Oliver offered an update to his offer.
"Multiple dealerships did end up contacting us," he said, "and we eventually chose one -- Zumbrota Ford in Zumbrota, Minnesota." The dealership excitedly confirmed the news Monday morning on their Facebook page. "We get to share our commercial with you all that was created with the John Oliver show. The show reached out and expressed how much they enjoy our commercials and asked if they could highlight Zumbrota Ford."
So what's the commercial script about? Oliver says, "The ad that we wrote was a tense, domestic psychodrama that, yes, was incidentally about their car dealership. But it was mainly about a marriage in serious trouble." For all of its dark melodrama, Oliver goes on to praise the Zumbrata team for throwing themselves at the script, even noting some of their own personal touches that were not included in the script.
"Jared and Dorinda did such a great job!" Zumbrota Ford praised their actors on Facebook. Watch the ad for yourself above and the whole John Oliver segment below. The commercial will also be airing on television in the Zumbrota area all this week.