Ex-coach’s TV commercial highlights resilience, humor

Before UH football coach Norm Chow was let go, the calls for his immediate termination were insistent, forceful and full of rage.

And then he was fired, and it was like all of Hawaii went “Whoa” and felt a bit guilty. There weren’t victory dances, only quiet little mumblings of, “Well, he did his best. It was his time.”

Awkward. Conflicted. Kinda sad.

Then the flower shop commercial debuted, and it was like statewide group catharsis.

A year ago ALTRES Staffing Creative Director Dave Ciano had an idea for a commercial. He wanted to find a high-profile person in the Hawaii community who was going through a high-profile job transition and feature that person in an ad for the employment agency. He wanted it to be upbeat. He wanted it to be funny. Ads about looking for a job always focus on the stress. This would be different.

Ciano and Song Choi, ALTRES director of marketing, kicked around the idea for a while. Who would they get to star in the commercial? What high-profile person was looking for a new job? Then came Norm Chow. Aw, man, he’d be perfect.

They reached out to Chow’s son Carter and ran their idea past him. Carter liked it and passed it along to his dad. The former coach liked it. The rest happened almost at light speed. The commercial went from concept to delivery in 10 days.

» WATCH NOW: Norm Chow: ‘Job Search Smarter, Not Harder’

“It was really unique that it happened that quickly,” Choi said. “Everything just came together perfectly.”

The idea was to depict the former football coach taking his skills and experience to a new field, something that might even be a better fit. The message to job-seekers is that looking for a new job doesn’t have to be humbling or depressing.

“It can be the best thing that happens to you,” Choi said. “Your skills may find a home in another industry.”

Song came up with the concept of depicting Chow running a flower shop. He was going for something completely different from football, something visually appealing and a way to show how Chow’s coaching experience would be an asset in other professions.

The commercial was shot by Kinetic Productions in a single afternoon at Watanabe Floral. Chow was apparently a total pro at memorizing and delivering his lines, even the one where he instructs his team of beefy floral arrangers to use “peonies,” an odd word for a Hawaii flower shop. “That was me, I wrote that,” Choi said. “I just wanted to hear Coach say that word.”

The ad started running Saturday during bowl games, and the creative team anxiously waited to see whether there would be a reaction. They had worried that maybe the ad was too different, too much of a risk. Almost immediately Twitter lit up with overwhelmingly positive comments. Chow comes off as polished, self-deprecating and admirably resilient.

“People were applauding Coach Chow for having a sense of humor,” Choi said.

Then, when ALTRES put the video on its Facebook page, it really took off. “It was shared hundreds of times and half a million views in just the first few days. The numbers climb every day,” Choi said.

For his role as spokesmodel in the commercial, Chow insisted that his talent fee be donated to charity. He is a longtime supporter of Caring and Sharing of South Bay, an organization in Torrance, Calif., that helps families and grants academic scholarships.

There are no plans for more ads with Chow, though in the future the agency might recruit another high-profile person looking for a new career. As Choi put it, “Well, with the political season right around the corner …”

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.