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General Trunk Monkey happenings.

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Trunk Monkey antics win over fans far, wide

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PORTLAND — Perhaps it was his cool-headedness in delivering a baby on the side of the road. Or his expertise in giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a man overcome by hot coffee. Or maybe it’s just that we all wish we had our very own Trunk Monkey.

Whatever his charm, Trunk Monkey, a chimpanzee featured in a comical series of car-dealership commercials, has been winning over audiences so successfully that he’s generated a profitable side business for the Portland ad agency that created him 3 ½ years ago.

Dealerships from as far away as New Zealand pay to license the series of commercials for their own use and now are the largest source of revenue for the R/West agency. Meanwhile Trunk Monkey is about to debut in his biggest market yet, as a New Jersey dealership is buying ads to run in the New York City area on Super Bowl Sunday.

Tim Ciasulli of the Planet Honda and Used Car Universe dealership in Union, N.J., is hoping that viewers will have the same response he did when a friend first e-mailed them to him.

“I’m watching them and I’m just laughing,” he said. “They’re very funny and extremely memorable.”

Like other dealerships that have licensed the commercials, he is supporting the campaign with his own marketing blitz — hiring an actor to wear a monkey suit and decking out the dealership in a jungle motif. “I think our phones are going to be ringing off the hook,” he predicted.

R/West, which first created the farcical commercials in 2003, has been banking on that kind of response. The agency, headed by President Sean Blixseth, found that the commercials — originally commissioned by Suburban Auto Group in Sandy, Ore. — have just as much sway with audiences outside Oregon.

The first commercial, showing a driver hitting a Trunk Monkey button on his dashboard to subdue an aggressive road rager, was produced for less than $50,000 with the filming assistance of a friend, Blixseth said.

The commercial, and others that followed, quickly gained popularity online. Trunk Monkey has since dispatched a would-be car thief in “Sopranos” style, fended off aliens and tried to bribe a police officer to let a speeding driver off.

R/West has continued to produce the ads for Suburban Auto Group, which supplements its Trunk Monkey campaign with T-shirts and bumper stickers. It also hosts the commercials, one of which will be broadcast locally during the Super Bowl, on its Web site. But since the 2003 debut, 45 other dealerships around the world have licensed the commercials, each for tens of thousands of dollars a year, making it the largest source of revenue for R/West, which employs 20.

The proceeds go for production of new commercials — now costing about $75,000 to $100,000 — and any profit above that is split between R/West and Suburban. The two declined to disclose the profit.

Syndicating commercials isn’t new, said Norm Grey, executive creative director with Creative Circus, a two-year advertising school in Atlanta.

But the challenge is, “no matter what happens, every bank, every car dealership has its own needs,” he said. “It’s not necessarily personal.”

Still, in the world of auto advertising, which focuses on price and “the deal, the deal, the deal,” Trunk Monkey breaks new ground, said Steve Miller, a senior reporter who covers the auto industry for marketing publication Brandweek.

It also is a way for a small agency like Blixseth’s to gain national attention, and perhaps open the door for national clients.

He said it’s unlikely that car dealerships, which have such defined geographic markets, would object to running the same commercials as another dealer somewhere else.

It didn’t bother Gary Grubbs, the advertising manager for the Lawrence Hall of Abilene dealership in Texas, which started running commercials last year. “Anything that’s a good idea never stays an exclusive for very long.”

The commercials don’t escape criticism. Some call to complain that he isn’t really a monkey at all, but rather a chimpanzee. (But Blixseth protested that “trunk chimpanzee” just didn’t have the same je ne sais quoi.)

And some animal-rights activists are upset about the use of a primate in advertising. The agency contracts with a California company that provides animals for filming.

But some dealerships say the commercials have only brought positive comments — as well as suggestions from customers about potential scripts.

“It has totally changed our life,” said Jane Delligatti, marketing director of Arnell Auto Group in Burns Harbor, Ind. “We have people calling, giving ideas for different spots. … This whole area of Northwest Indiana loves our Trunk Monkey.”

Copyright © The Seattle Times Company

Byline: HELEN JUNG, The Oregonian
Source: Seattle Times Newspaper

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Going ape over Tomkinson ads

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Despite the originality of the opening ceremonies and the thrill of the downhill, the thing I remember most vividly about last month’s Olympic Games had nothing to do with athletic competition.

I can’t stop giggling about those silly Tomkinson trunk monkey commercials.

Have you seen them?

There are two ads playing now. In the first, a woman is pulled over for speeding. When it’s clear the officer intends to write her a ticket, she presses a button and a monkey hops out of the trunk of her car. First, he offers the patrolman a fistful of cash. When the officer shakes his head, the monkey pulls a secret weapon from behind his back: a doughnut!

In the final scene, the monkey forlornly looks out from the squad car’s back window as he’s being driven away to lockup.

The second ad, which I’ve seen only once, shows a trunk monkey kicking out the back seat of a stolen car and forcing the thief to pull over. The monkey drags the culprit out of the car to the railing of a bridge and throws him over, reclaiming the car for his owner.

Rick Tomkinson, owner of Tomkinson Automotive Group, believes most car dealers’ ads have left the public “shell shocked” from the barrage of gimmicks and come-ons.

Tim Borne, chairman of Asher Agency, agrees.

“Car dealers do bad advertising, as a rule,” he said.

Tomkinson wants to distance himself from the pack. “We want to give people a chuckle and hope they’ll come in and give us a try,” he said.

The idea, he said, is to increase his 30-year-old Fort Wayne-based company’s name recognition. Tomkinson sells Dodges and BMWs at 929 Avenue of Autos and Chryslers and Jeeps at 4801 Coldwater Road.

Making TV commercials can be expensive – a real hurdle for small- and mid-sized local retailers. But placing your name on one that’s a canned spot – one that can be personalized by a number of companies in different markets – can allow a business to run ads with better production values.

“It could allow you to look bigger than you are,” said John Ferguson, president and principal of Ferguson Advertising.

That’s the case here. Car dealerships in two other markets are running the same series of ads, which were designed by R/West, a West Coast agency, Tomkinson said. It’s the same agency that does those Career Builder.com ads that show a frustrated guy working at a company surrounded by a bunch of monkeys. Now, I know you’ve seen those clever commercials.

“Local or national, it’s tough to stand out,” Ferguson said. But, he added, a good concept can be the launching pad for a memorable ad, even without a big budget.

The trunk monkey ads have made an impression on Ferguson. They’ve also caught the eye of Chad Stuckey, founder and president of Brand Innovation Group.

His team gathers Monday mornings to dissect the commercials they remember seeing over the previous weekend. The real test of a good spot is whether viewers can remember what it was selling.

“Good humor’s hard to pull off,” Stuckey said. “Those (trunk monkey) ads make me laugh every time I see them. But will it make me go out and buy a car? I don’t know.”

Borne, of Asher Agency, said that although Dodge customers might get a kick out of the monkey, “For a BMW buyer, is that the image you want?”

I can’t afford a BMW, so I don’t know. I just know what’s funny. And so does Tomkinson. He thinks the ads’ tone will at least distinguish his dealership. The advertising guys I consulted say it’s tough to gauge commercials’ effectiveness without conducting focus groups before and after. Most of the results are measured anecdotally.

Tompkinson’s showrooms are seeing more customer traffic in recent weeks, although the owner concedes that consumer interest tends to take an upturn as winter ends and spring arrives. Still, those ads are making an impression.

“There’s no question it’s going to raise our name as the one company that’s not screaming at (customers),” he said.

There’s no question that I’m thinking Tomkinson. But I bought a new car only a few months ago. Do you think he’d sell me just the monkey?

Source: The Journal Gazette
Byline: Sherry Slater

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Couple sure love will overcome

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“Trunk monkey” can’t enter U.S., fiance may not be allowed in Canada after border arrest

An Amherst woman who got caught trying to sneak across the U.S. border in the trunk of her American fiance’s sports car says the couple, who met online, will find a way to spend their lives together despite any legal obstacles.

Dora Arlene Sauveur, 36, was arrested July 19 at the border crossing at Houlton, Maine, and served 23 days in a county jail at Bangor, Maine. Her friends started calling her “trunk monkey” and “suitcase” after her arrest.

Her fiance, Martin Ellis Crossno, 34, of South Carolina started serving a similar jail term last week.

Ms. Sauveur is banned from visiting the United States for 20 years and Mr. Crossno is now a convicted felon and might not be allowed to visit Canada.

Ms. Sauveur said the couple will find a way to be together, even if it means moving to France or Mexico or living in tents across from each other at the Canada-U.S. border.

“I’m sure we’re going to figure something out,” she said. “We’re getting married.”

She said Mr. Crossno has written to Oprah Winfrey and hopes to win the American TV talk show host’s support or appear on her program.

Ms. Sauveur and Mr. Crossno, who had clean records at the time of their arrest, last saw each other in court the next day. They had spent the night in adjoining cells but couldn’t see each other.

“We could talk to each other,” Ms. Sauveur said from her home Monday.

“They took him first, and he said, ‘I love you, baby.’ ”

When they were being transferred — in shackles and handcuffs — from the jail to the courthouse, their paths crossed and Ms. Sauveur defied the guards’ orders against personal contact and quickly gave Mr. Crossno a kiss.

Since then, the pair have mostly communicated the way they met — over the Internet.

Ms. Sauveur, who referred to herself as a “crazy Newfie,” had been married to Doug Sauveur of Amherst for nine years. They had two sons, now ages nine and six, but split in July 2003.

She met a different South Carolina man, Todd Mumford, 33, on the Internet in May 2004, went to visit him and ended up moving in with his parents.

She briefly returned to Canada and went back to Mr. Mumford’s parents’ house in August 2004. Her relationship with Mr. Mumford ended a few months later but she continued to stay with his parents and met Mr. Crossno last April.

She hit it off with the computer expert, whom she said hadn’t had a girlfriend for about eight years.

“We went hiking and we both clicked,” she said. “We just talked to each other all the time and we just grew more fond of each other.”

She started the application process for American citizenship, met Mr. Crossno’s parents and took him to Canada to meet her family in July.

The couple set out to drive back to South Carolina on July 14 but got stopped at the border. Ms. Sauveur had her sons with her and was asked to talk to a border official. She had all the necessary paperwork and her ex-husband’s permission to take the kids, who were on summer vacation, but a border officer said she had violated her six-month visa on her previous visit to the U.S.

She was denied entry to the country for five years. But with work as a graphic designer awaiting her in South Carolina, she decided to sneak into the country. Although she had a global positioning system device and contemplated running through the woods, she and Mr. Crossno decided she’d hide in the trunk of his car.

“To think back now, it was kind of stupid,” she said.

The American judge told Ms. Sauveur to start acting her age.

She said her jail time involved lots of boredom and horrible food.

“I’d have to ask them, ‘What are we eating?’ ” she said.

After her release, she returned to Amherst and started working at Wal-Mart, a job she will leave next week to work for TeleTech, a call centre company.

Ms. Sauveur said Mr. Crossno recently became very religious.

“I guess he found God before he went to jail,” she said. “He got to bring his Bible in and he’s just going to Bible-thump in jail,” she said.

She isn’t religious, but she said his recent conversion won’t be a problem for them.

To communicate during their time apart, Ms. Sauveur bought a laptop to send instant messages and she also foots the bill for pricey, international, convict-to-civilian phone calls. She said they’ve spoken to each other for up to a half-hour at $5 a minute.

She said her family and friends are supportive, even though some tease her, but Mr. Crossno’s family is somewhat shocked by all that has happened.

“Before me, Martin wasn’t with anybody for like eight or 10 years,” she said. “Then he meets me and in four months I’m meeting his mom, and (after) another month we’re going to meet my parents, and then in another month we’re in jail.”

Ms. Sauveur thinks her ban from the U.S. is “awful mean” and too long.

“It’s kind of crazy to ban someone for 20 years,” she said. “If I had a trunk full of drugs or a trunk full of guns or a bunch of Mexicans stuffed in the trunk, it’d be different, but I don’t think we did it in such a mean way that that’s the punishment we should put up with.”

Mr. Crossno’s situation regarding entry to Canada isn’t clear.

Jennifer Morrison, a spokeswoman for the Canada Border Services Agency, said: “If you have a criminal record, then right off the bat you’re inadmissible to Canada, (but) there are some exceptions.”

She said such people have two options — apply for permission at a consulate outside Canada or speak to an officer on arrival at the border.

“It’s their decision to make and they take all the factors into consideration,” Ms. Morrison said.

“It really depends on the situation.”

She wouldn’t speculate on Mr. Crossno’s chances of entering Canada but said a felony conviction always remains on a person’s record.

Despite all the difficulties they’ve been through, Ms. Sauveur said she would do it all over again to be with her man.

“You can’t beat love,” she said.

Source: The Chronicle Herald
Byline: DAN ARSENAULT Crime Reporter

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The perils facing British contractors on the world’s most dangerous road

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Those that have chosen to make their living amid the mayhem and random murder of post-invasion Iraq call it the BIAP-dash. It is the journey to Baghdad international airport, along the most dangerous highway in the world. Three British Shia pilgrims travelled it this week and paid with their lives when their minibus was ambushed. For the growing number of Britons working in Iraq’s burgeoning security industry, escorting diplomats, politicians and senior executives along it is the job they relish the least.

“There is always something going on,” said Jason, a former elite British soldier who works on personal security detail for a major engineering company there. “It could be an improvised explosive device by the side of the road, people taking pot shots at you or a truck loaded with explosives trying to ram you. The danger is there all the time.”

Those who have worked in Iraq are unmoved by the so-called “trophy” film captured on the airport road that emerged this week. Apparently taken from an unofficial website run by former employees of Aegis Defence Systems, the firm owned by Colonel Tim Spicer, the film shows a private security convoy shooting at what appears to be a civilian vehicle.

For the convoys, firing on vehicles that threaten the safety of their clients is the final sanction in a standard operating procedure drilled into them during weeks of intensive training. Andy, who trains security staff specifically to work in Iraq, said: “Our guys are trained to shoot if required. These local vehicles can be acting with bravado or they can be probing, planning a later attack. They are all perfectly aware that they must stay back. If they don’t they are dicing with death – they know that.”

According to Jason, the rear gunner, or trunk monkey that accompanies each convoy, moves through a special procedure to warn off unwanted motorists. “If they ignore the Arabic warning signs, we use a hand signal, then if they persist we fire a warning flare. If that doesn’t work it’s a bullet to the radiator, then the engine block. As a last resort, we’ll shoot the driver.”

The footage, which has been circulated among security personnel on e-mail for some months, has prompted fury from British politicians. The Conservatives even compared it to the scenes captured at the notorious Abu Ghraib jail. Critics of the private security firms say they are maverick forces, unregulated and operating beyond the law. Iraqi security sources say that as many as 60 civilians have been killed in similar shootings.

Aegis Defence Systems won a $150m (£86m) contract to provide security services to the US military last year. The company said it has set up a “formal board of inquiry” to investigate the matter. However, it refused to comment on allegations, which surfaced on the internet yesterday, that the man responsible for one of the shooting incidents was a South African employee of the company who worked out of the company’s Victory headquarters. It was claimed that attempts to sack him had failed after his convoy threatened to quit. Despite the dangers, security jobs in Iraq are vastly oversubscribed. A typical eight-week posting can see staff come home with up to $30,000 (£17,000) tax-free. There has been a boom in training courses that teach potential applicants everything from the use of firearms, to battlefield first aid and defensive driving techniques. There are even Ministry of Defence grants to help ex-soldiers retrain. A typical five-week course to operate in a level-five hostile environment – London is ranked level one – lasts five weeks and costs £4,000.

Jason insists the training is rigorous and firms stringently enforce discipline. Every time a firearm is discharged, staff must account for the ammunition. “This is no place for rampant egos or wannabe Rambos,” he said. “The insurgents are becoming better trained, their technology is improving and their weapons are becoming more sophisticated all the time.”

Andy agrees: “Egos are what get people killed. That is what we try to get across to the guys. The terrorists are not stupid. They are making their own videos and are doing their own training. They are well trained and well motivated. Our guys are on the job 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and you cannot relax, not ever.”

Jason added: “After a contract out there you are exhausted but no one is forced to be out there. We are not mercenaries but protection work can be boring in Britain. Out there, it is never dull.”

Source: The Independent
Byline: Jonathan Brown

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Brooklyn, New York, Auto Dealership Pulls Chimpanzee Commercial

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Plaza Auto Mall pulled its “Trunk Monkey” commercial, featuring a live chimpanzee, after hearing from PETA and local residents about the cruelty inherent in training young great apes to perform for ads. The dealership stated, “Once we first heard of the possibility of the cruelty happening, we immediately discontinued all advertising.”

Source: PETA

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Plaza Auto Mall Changes Tune After Learning Great Apes Are Beaten Into Performing

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For Immediate Release: August 18, 2005
Contact: Amy Rhodes 757-622-7382

Brooklyn, N.Y. — After Plaza Auto Mall’s controversial “Trunk Monkey” commercial featuring a chimpanzee who is portrayed as rescuing a beleaguered driver caused public outcry and a response from PETA, the car dealership pulled the ad off the air. PETA will be awarding the dealership its “Compassionate Advertiser Award.”

PETA contacted auto dealer John Rossati after receiving complaints about his commercial from local viewers. Informing him about the cruel methods used in training great apes, PETA also reported that Honda, PUMA, and Keds recently pulled their commercials featuring great apes and that Men’s Wearhouse had pledged to never use great apes in ads. Furniture chain HomeUSA Warehouse and New Jersey auto dealership Malouf Ford pulled their entire ad campaigns featuring a chimpanzee and an orangutan, respectively, after corresponding with PETA.

A primatologist working undercover for a California facility that trains great apes for the TV and film industries witnessed trainers kicking, punching, and beating chimpanzees into submission. The orangutans and chimpanzees seen on TV are traumatically taken from their mothers. By the time they reach young adulthood, they are too powerful to be used and are often discarded at substandard roadside zoos or warehoused. The Jane Goodall Institute and the American Zoo & Aquarium Association recognize the unavoidable problems of using great apes for entertainment.

Plaza Auto Mall thanked PETA, saying, “Once we first heard of the possibility of the cruelty happening, we immediately discontinued all advertising.” Says PETA Director Debbie Leahy, “Plaza Auto Mall is sending a positive message that will resonate well beyond the Brooklyn community. These intelligent, social, and sensitive animals don’t deserve to be treated like punching bags by trainers.”

For more information, visit NoMoreMonkeyBusiness.com. A copy of PETA’s letter to John Rossati is available upon request.