How Serta Mattresses Cast a Black Friday Commercial Without a Casting Director

THE PROBLEM

Leo Burnett and Serta Mattresses needed to film creative involving actors reading actual social media posts from kids talking about their parents’ uncomfortable mattresses when they come home for the holidays. Genius! The only problem? The budget was challenged, and there was money for either a scaled back casting session or locations, not both. Oh yes, and due to timing, the project needed to shoot almost 1 year in advance.

“If you’ve ever cast a commercial, you know that the older your age specifications for a role, the smaller the talent pool. But even given those challenges, without a casting director the production team was able to cast this Serta Mattresses TV Commercial effectively on a budget, using our internal producing team.
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THE SOLUTION

Because the houses were supposed to feel like “lived in” houses that older parents would habitate, we couldn’t simply do a file pull from a location scout who has bigger, more up to date homes in their back pocket. Luckily, one of the in-house staff at Leo Burnett had parents willing to let the production happen at their house. But the “lived in” house was only 1,500 square feet, and we had 4 scenes that were supposed to be in 4 different guest bedrooms.

Director Jeremy Pinckert worked with Leo Burnett’s executive creative director Brian Shembeda to completely redesign the existing rooms in the house into 4 distinct locations: the Vintage Master Room , the 4H Horse Room, the 80s Boys Room, and the Catch-All Room. Through set director Chris Carini and prop master Nathan Wiese, the rooms were able to convey the idea in one location, during one winter-short shoot day.

That brings us to casting. Without the budget for a casting director or faciliities, Explore’s line producer Adam Picchietti and his production team worked directly with the talent agencies to find our parents. If you’ve ever cast a commercial, you know that the older your age specifications for a role, the smaller the talent pool. But even given those challenges, without a casting director the production team was able to was able to cast this Serta Mattresses TV Commercial effectively on a budget, using our internal producing team.

THE DELIVERY

This commercial was shot in December of 2021, with the November 2022 Black Friday commercial time period as the delivery date. Posted by our friends at Utopic, the final deliverables were one hero spot, with 4 additional cut downs. Serta Mattresses were ecstatic at the return on investment for a smaller budget shoot using funds from their previous year’s budget.