The mysterious Easter Island statues are the centrepiece of a
commercial to whip up public enthusiasm for the millennium
celebrations.
The monuments stand impassive as a thousand years of history are
condensed into a single day for the #250,000, 60-second film through M&C
Saatchi, which breaks on Christmas Day.
Its appearance marks the first advertising by the Government’s New
Millennium Experience Company, whose Dome has been subjected to
relentless media criticism and public cynicism.
The #1.5 million campaign, which will run for two-and-half weeks, makes
no reference to the Dome. Instead, it asks people to imagine that 1,000
years of history occurred between sunrise and sunset. It ends by urging
us to ’Imagine what you can do tomorrow’.
With a voiceover by Jeremy Irons, and music by Dave Stewart, the film
aims to tap into the emotional and reflective moods felt by people
during the festive season.
’The film is about fuelling people’s expectations and generating
enthusiasm,’ Sholto Douglas-Home, the NMEC’s director of marketing and
communications, said. ’It’s also about getting people to realise that we
are privileged to be here at this point in our history.’
Simon Dicketts, M&C Saatchi’s joint creative director who wrote and art
directed the commercial, spent more than a week on Easter Island with
the film’s director, Malcolm Venville.
’It had long been in my mind to use the statues, which are not only as
old as the millennium itself but make a perfect sundial,’ Dicketts
said.
The Dome will not figure in advertising until late autumn when tickets
go on sale.
