RADIO COPYWRITER: TOM O'KEEFE By Beth Heitzma

Foote, Cone & Belding's Tom O'Keefe considers writing radio copy a challenge and one he gladly accepts. 'It's hard to be creative in radio and get your point across,'

O’Keefe, a senior copywriter, has been with FCB/Chicago for about three years. In addition to Coors Brewing Co.’s Killian’s Red radio campaign, he works on Coors Light promotional TV and radio. Before joining FCB, O’Keefe spent three years at City Video/Chicago as a producer/writer.
With the assignment for radio spots for Killian’s, O’Keefe set out to give the beer a cool personality, not unlike the James Bond character. It seems to have worked. O’Keefe has written seven spots since fall, 1992, and more are expected this summer.
BLUE WATERS
Music: (Throughout)
Man: We spent the day in blue waters off the Gulf near Turquoise Bay. My neon-orange wet-suited buddies and I–fifty feet down in an aqua world of Yellowtails and Green Moray eels until a Great White chased us–yellow bellied–back to our boat, ‘Blackbeard’s Revenge.’ There, on deck, we seized a golden opportunity and asked for the Red. ‘Killian’s Red,’ said the leather-skinned cook, named Tanner, who pointed to a cedar sea chest full of sand-frosted white amber bottles. Grabbing one, I quickly popped its orange-rimmed, horse-of-a-different-color-labeled top off, poured the crisp, scarlet lager into a tall ivory stein and then tasted the smooth flowing difference of Red. And there, on ‘Blackbeard’s Revenge’ we slowly sailed on blue waters back to the shore near Turquoise Bay drinking our cold Killian’s while the leather-skinned Cook prepared the Red Snapper.
Anncr: Killian’s Red. Ask for it by color. Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado.
Music: Fade out.
Copyright Adweek L.P. (1993)