You know that moment when you wake up in the middle of a meeting
and feel compelled to demonstrate that you really haven't been asleep by
saying something pertinent? And what you say is inevitably
gibberish?
(I once asked the significance of JASOND across the top of the chart
being discussed. The presenter looked helplessly around for someone else
to break the news and then said, ever so slowly, " Er ... that would be
July, August, September ...")
That's how I felt when I woke up in the middle of the Archers
commercial.
But no words would come. It was just before the "What a smug girl I am"
end shot, obligatory in all those commercials where girls stick it to
men. What a smug girl she is. Mind you, it's yet another brief for yet
another sticky drink; it doesn't get any easier.
Mother continues to solve its Batchelors briefs by throwing the food all
over the place. Its a fantastic agency and, like all step-change
agencies since DDB in New York in the 60s, part of the key to its
freshness is recognition of just how important our propositions and
advertisements are in real people's lives.
Which is not very.
So the irreverence with which it treats its products is as refreshing as
its strategies are radical. My concern is that the executions are
becoming too repetitive. In Cup A Soup we have funny enough scripts, but
guess what? The stuff ends up everywhere but the stomach. And we even
have the personalised "big voice" voiceover fresh from the excellent ITV
Digital campaign, itself via another route fresh from Fortnum and
Mason.
Does this matter, as long as it works? In the hard world of sales and
brand share, no, not at all. But if you regularly fall back on parody
and self-parody, you can get out of the habit of genuine
origination.
Which brings us to its 40 seconds of funky nuns for Magic TV. Genuine
origination is what Mother has been so jaw-droppingly good at since the
day it set up. My reservation about these two campaigns is mostly to do
with their creators' own previous high standards.
Genuine origination could also truly have been claimed for the original
Ferrero Rocher commercial; truly, no-one had ever genuinely originated
anything like it before. The new print campaign has less of the
naffness, even some elegance, but awful though the reasoning behind this
may be to contemplate, perhaps less of the impact.
But Lupo is stunning; it's your duty to sit down and watch it, many
times.
Weird, worrying, unexpected - but also oddly charming. It makes an
indifferent little car attractive to a young market. It's a haunting,
clever piece of work. And comparing it with a tough little baby is not
the most revolutionary of ideas. But it's the way they tell it.
And brilliant execution is the key to why the Social Work campaign is so
startlingly different. To explain why society's misfits behave the way
they do and what social workers can do about it, through the medium of a
strip cartoon, could seem to be the final evidence that we're all now so
dumbed down that even the most serious of messages have to be trivially
put.
But there is concern and sympathy radiating off these pages in a far
more understanding and persuasive way than any number of the weight-ier,
thunderous approaches to public service advertising we've all seen
before. And, hopefully, with these two campaigns, not just the
Volkswagen and COI Communications clients but also the agency people
will get the effect they deserve.
Perhaps a couple of golds?
FERRERO ROCHER
Project: Ferrero Rocher
Client: Neil McIntosh, marketing director
Brief: Give them Ferrero Rocher and make them feel special. But can you
bring yourself to do it?
Agency: Banks Hoggins O'Shea/FCB
Writer: Graham Pugh
Art director: Chris Walker
Typographer: Martin Crockatt
Photographer: Sara Morris
Exposure: Six-sheet posters
BATCHELORS
Project: Cup A Soup
Client: Richard Kingsbury, senior brand manager
Brief: Modernise and create a greater awareness for Cup A Soup
Agency: Mother
Writer: Mother
Art director: Mother
Director: Traktor
Production company: Partizan Exposure: National TV
VOLKSWAGEN
Project: Lupo
Client: Catherine Woolfe , communications manager
Brief: Make people think of Lupo as solid as an extremely small rock
Agency: BMP DDB
Writer: Jeremy Craigen
Art director: Joanna Wenley
Director: Fredrik Bond
Production company: Harry Nash
Exposure: National TV
GUINNESS UDV
Project: Archers Schnapps
Client: Phillip Gladman, global brand director
Brief: Maintain the momentum behind the successful relaunch of Archers
Schnapps
Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi
Writers: Joel Bradley and Rupert Jordan
Art directors: Phil Clarke and Stuart Mills
Director: Anthea Benton
Production company: Partizan
Exposure: National TV
COI COMMUNICATIONS
Project: Social work recruitment
Client: Fiona Samson, campaign team leader
Brief: Recruit social workers
Agency: D'Arcy
Writer: Justin Hooper
Art director: Christian Cotterill
Illustrator: David McKean
Typographers: Christian Cotterill and Steve Darsow
Exposure: National press
EMAP
Project: Magic TV
Client: Melanie Whitehead, brand manager
Brief: Launch Magic TV station
Agency: Mother
Writer: Mother
Art director: Mother
Director: Trevor Melvin
Production company: Paul Weiland Film Company
Exposure: Digital and satellite TV
