J. Walter Thompson has put together a fantasy dinner party in a new
commercial for After Eight dinner mints.
Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Stephen Fry, Naomi Campbell, Albert
Einstein, David Niven and Bobby Moore all share a box of post-prandial
After Eights, while Liberace entertains them on a grand piano.
The commercial opens with the question: ’What makes the perfect dinner
party?’ It then moves on to an aerial shot of the eight guests seated
around an oval table. As the conversation level rises above the sound of
cutlery and glasses clinking, the camera focuses on individual
exchanges.
Monroe whispers behind her hand to Fry, although we can only guess at
what she says from Fry’s reply: ’M’dear, I’m not that sort of chap.’
Monroe is again at the centre of conversation as she asks Einstein: ’No,
I mean what do you do for a living? I hear you work with your relatives.
I just adore conversation, don’t you?’ Next she asks Moore, ’Don’t you
play basketball or something?’ to which he replies, ’Not exactly’.
Meanwhile, Campbell is telling Dean, ’I did Quest for Fire when I was
nine’, and Niven is asking her for ’one of those chocolates of
yours’.
The ad finishes with Fry saying, ’Naomi, do you ever get the feeling
we’re living in a complete fantasy world?’ before we turn to Liberace,
who winks slyly at the camera.
Pre-production for the commercial took more than six months. Once the
celebrities had been chosen, the creative team spent months searching
for good quality original footage. Flame was used to interweave the
images.
The commercial was written by Trevor De Silva, art directed by Paul
White and directed by Jeff Stark through Stark Films. Post-production
was by Rushes and media is through MindShare.
