Filias Advertising Breaks Salvation Army Spots

Filias Advertising is breaking a pair of TV spots for the New Hampshire branch of the Salvation Army.

The spots, titled “Kids” and “Meals,” were shot with a hand-held mini-DV camera in a local soup kitchen by Greg Filias, creative director and president of the Portsmouth, N.H., agency.

“I did it for [economic reasons] and also to bring my own vision to the [spots],” said Filias, who is also a board member for the Salvation Army.

The executions are filled with black-and-white footage of smiling children, volunteers helping out, and men and women enjoying a meal. No voiceover or copy is used, except for the Salvation Army logo which appears at the end of each spot. Music by local composer Andy Happel accompanies each spot.

“I wanted to be very emotional. It’s easy to ask for money, but the best way to ask for money is to not ask,” Filias said. “I wanted to wrench [people’s] hearts.”

Filias also wanted to, “go beyond the kettle [season]. My thought was that people don’t know what we do all year long and the importance of what we do,” he said. “The soup kitchen is part of that—it’s open everyday and we feed whoever wants to eat, no questions asked.”

Filias chose to create exclusively broadcast because of a perceived decline in local print readership. The work is the first of its kind for the Portsmouth, N.H., Salvation Army.

AT&T Media Services in Portsmouth donated cable TV air time. Spots are running locally on New England Cable News, CNN, The Family Channel, the Sci-Fi Channel and VH-1.