Last Blog Ever: Advertisement

If I were to make a television ad for When You Are Engulfed in Flames I would make it appealing to the older crowd and young adults.  How I would start out the ad is by possibly having a short clip of Sedaris when he was younger, a more serious part of a story.  From there have it build up as he is getting older, still using the parts of his stories when he is more serious.  Then, all the sudden it will be abruptly interrupted by one of his sarcastic comments that will make the audience laugh.  Since this novel really takes place throughout Sedaris' whole life, it would be very appropriate to include clips that show him as a young boy and clips that show what Sedaris has grown up to be.  After the sarcastic comment, that comes from one of his short stories of course, I would continue with the comedy.  Even though the stories about Sedaris do not really match up, I do think that there is a theme among them.  This theme would probably be how Sedaris has grown as a person because of his experiences and the people he has known and met throughout his life.  I would try to somehow portray this theme into the commercial too, that way people would not think that it is just a bunch of pointless stories thrown into a book.  It is kind of hard to explain this though, and I do not think that it would appeal to many people if they did not think there was a message or theme, at least it would not to me.  I would then continue to show clips of his stories, but cutting them off so it does not reveal too much.  Since Sedaris does use dirty words in this novel, I think it would be pretty funny to incorporate them into the commercial, but every time someone were to say a curse word it would be beeped out.  That way it would be made clear that it is a book for a mature audience, but at the same time it would add a little humor into it.  I would make sure that it is like a build up and the guy narrating it would have a deep and intense sounding voice.  At the very end of it would flash the picture of the book with flames rising from the bottom of the screen.  The deep voiced man would say the title like it is leaving a clif hanger.  I know that this book is not that intense, but you got to make it appeal to the twenty to forty year olds.