Fencing in a TV Commercial

[Jeeves]

CGM financial runs a nice 15sec spot that features 2 guys fencing dry foil and discussing investments. I saw it on CNN, of all places.
Looks like dry foils with french grips.
Decent blade work, and some nice parries, but the end touch seems to land on the mask bib. The masks are on the entire spot.
Anybody else had an opportunity to view this spot? Better yet. Who did the fencing?
It's always nice to see fencing make it into the media. Even if it is just 15 seconds.

[SäbelFechter]

Saw another ad on the tv this evening with a fencer in it. It was on one of the US stations and was an advertisement for some local furniture store. It had two shots of a woman from the US Olympic fencing team. The first was just a close up of her face, but you could tell that she was wearing her jacket, The second showed her full-length and she was standing in the store wearing her uniform and holding her mask & weapon. Guess the owners of this store wanted to have an ad that tied in with the upcoming Olympics and this was the only local athlete they could find.

[tinasam]

I saw a YellowPages ad where there was "Fences" and showed fencers on top and picket fences on bottom. It was brief but very cute.

[Inquartata]

CGM's logo is a fencer---an epee fencer, I think. I'm surprised no one has ever tried to approach them about sponsorship or something...or maybe they have without success.

[swordsen]

People have approached them. They have not been interested.

[HilandDoug]

The spot is actually for the CGM Realty Fund, a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT). The spot has been running since 1997, actually, and every once in a while they have to update the audio track on the spot because when it started, the REIT was returning 90% or something outrageous like that, and it has since dropped drastically. It changes every quarter or so. Since I'm in the financial biz, I see that spot a few times a day. The people in my office used to say, "Hey, that's what Doug does!" when they saw the spot, but it's gotten to be old hat around here.

[fred]

This is interesting - any idea -why- they selected a fencer for their logo? It's not something that I would expect to be a logo for a financial company.

[Methix]

Well I emailed CGM because I was curious, here's the response I got:

Thanks for writing to CGM Funds. We chose a fencer to be our logo to
reflect a shared approach to our respective tasks: in fencing as in
money management, one must be agile and precise.

Again, thanks for writing.

Best wishes,

Martha Maguire
Funds Marketing
CGM Funds

[Mergs]

An interesting response from CGM. I know that they have been approached about being a sponsor (don't know if it was locally or through USFA) and they declined. Not sure if they were shown any demographics on fencers as to distribution of occupations, but if it were pointed out that many fencers do go on to be medical professionals and (shudder) lawyers, and as they get older have much more disposable income to INVEST....... and that fencers tend to have a somewhat product loyalty, then why not make sure their name is in front of potential clients.

And, if agility and preciseness is their aim (sorry, had to use that one), then a fencer needs to get to their marketing agency and talk to them about showing a realllllly good wrist shot, or, oh my God, jump flick to the back while fleching! I digress.

[A Rud]

it would be really cool if they showed the better parts of fencing. Ya know, the whips, hrad flicks and slashes, bruises. that would be kool

<img src="graemlins/freak2.gif" border="0" alt="[Freak]" />