AD_FILTER

Greatest Commercial

2006-09-10T02:04:00.000-07:00

Things have been a bit hectic as we have been shooting out own spec commercials this week - we will let you know when they are ready to be viewed online - so it has been a while. But this should make up for it - seeing as I am posting the "greatest commercial ever".

It is a Japanese ad starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. And it is pretty incredible. More bizarre than outright funny. It was made for Yosh, which is apparently some kind of energy drink. Apparently Arnold made a slew of Japanese ads - here is another, in which he tones it down a few notches - and clearly Japanese ads starring US celebrities is a pretty ripe topic in itself, and one that I will likely return to in the not too distant future.

Another very popular guy for the Japanese marketing gurus has been the fighter Bob Sapp (though he is kind of on the wane now), who I actually spent a night with in Roppongi, Tokyo, filming his antics for a TV show pitch. Here is one of his ads. They are really into the lovable monster thing in Japan. And what is incredible is that they really think that Bob Sapp is FAMOUS in the US. I had never heard of him before going over there. And in Japan, for a while, he totally ruled the country. Here is Sapp Time. You should watch it.

Spec Commercials

2006-09-05T23:50:00.000-07:00

I saw that the AICP also has a spec commercial award at their annual show and that got me to thinking about spec commercials. I have a friend who has shot a bunch of them and I always kind of wondered what you (the people involved) get out of it. He is a cameraman so it seems pretty clear that he gets something sweet to add to his demo reel. But a lot of these spots look like they have a TON of money spent on them, like this ad for Apple.

I think what someone suggested in the comments posted was probably correct - that this may have been piggybacked on top of a larger production being done in Africa, but still, this obviously took a ton of time, and effort. And there are tons of spec commercials with similar high production value - just take a look on The Spec Spot.

So, my basic question is: Why this is necessary? Why not shoot this exact same commercial in the US with a miniDV camera and some stock footage and a quickly thrown together set. You could definitely capture the same gag, no? I feel like there is something I may be missing, but I am just not sure what one gets out of shooting on 35mm. It seems that once you get picked up by an agency as a director and get some work, then you can shoot on whatever you want and spend as much money as you want - why do you need to lay out money to show people you know what a good shot is, and how to tell a 30 second story that "pops"? Can you not do this in an afternoon with some friends and a video camera?

Samuel L. Jackson

2006-09-03T10:50:00.000-07:00

Cruising around youtube I found this fake commercial done by Dave Chapelle. Pretty funny. Anyway, it made me wonder if Jackson had actually been in any commercials (I guessed yes, but don't watch much TV), and if he actually talked like that in the commercials. Yes, and kind of.

Well, totally in this one, which was made by Nike in 1998 when a lockout delayed the start of the NBA season.

And this one, also from 1998, for the MTV Movie Awards (which he hosted that year), is simply bizarre.

After I watched the next one in this campaign I seemed to be catching the theme (= Samuel Jackson has a big dick).

Then this one drops the wang theme and decides to go back to basics. SLJ saying "fuck".

AICP 1992

2006-09-02T13:00:00.000-07:00

Looking through the AICP award list - the first one they have listed on their website was held 14 years ago in 1992. One of the direction/humor awards went to the Reebok: Talking Tennis Balls spot. It is funny how dated the whole commercial looks at this point. I never had a pair of Pumps myself. Though I did get on board for Hexalite.

Sonnenfeld got his real start as a cinematographer with Blood Simple (1984!), after going to NYU with Joel Coen (though apparently they didn't know each other in school). It seems as if he did a lot of his ads around the time that he transitioned from cinematographer to director (beginning with The Addams Family in 1991. He was behind the first batch of Duracell ads featuring the mean-spirited battery-powered Puttermans as well.

Big Year for Budgen

2006-09-02T11:09:00.000-07:00

Frank Budgen's had a big year. Along with Spike Jonze he was honored by the AICP in their 2006 show in the "Direction/Visual" category. It wasn't for this ad, it was for another called "JumpRope". Nevertheless I prefer "Water Balloons" which was honored by the AICP for its editing.

Frank is represented by Gorgeous Pictures in England and it seems all the directors at Gorgeous have some deal to produce in the states through the commercial juggernaut, Anonymous Content.

The other work on Frank's page in the Gorgeous site is worth checking out, especially his Stella Artois Ad.

Another Sprint

2006-09-01T07:51:00.000-07:00

Sprint had another AICP award winner with this ad. The Superbowl ad won in the humor category, this one for Talent/Perfomance and Dialogue/Monologue. Man there are a lot of awards these days.

Superbowl 2006

2006-09-01T07:21:00.000-07:00

I was in Sweden at the time and actually have no idea who one the last superbowl. This ad (which first aired during the Superbowl), made for sprint was done by TBWA\Chiat\Day New York. These are also the same guys who started the absolut vodka campaign. The longest running ad campaign ever with over 1500 ads to date. Someone must have gotten a raise for that one.

Tragos American Management, Bonnange French Marketing, Wiesendanger Swiss Creation, and Ajroldi Italian Client Services were the original people in the merger which resulted in the name TBWA\. I think I kind of would have liked it if they had just kept the whole thing. It's part of the ominous sounding Omnicom group - the "world's largest advertising agency holding company in terms of revenue". Yikes.

We Are Out To Change The World

2006-08-31T09:10:00.000-07:00

I was watching this old commercial for the "Legend of Zelda" and thought it was similar to something from my childhood.

Then I remembered, Captain EO.

The question is which came first? This turns out to be a tough call.

Captain EO opened Friday September 12, 1986. So they must have been producing it in early 1986, maybe into 1985. For safety's sake we'll say November 1985.

The Legend of Zelda was released in Japan February 12, 1986. It is difficult to figure out when exactly these ads were running in Japan, either as a pre-release campaign or just regular post-release advertising. There had to be planning on this commercial that lasted at least a month, putting (if it was a pre-release ad) it in January 1986.

The dates are too close to be sure. Let's chock this one up to spontaneous development, ala Newton/Liebniz.

While I was going down this rabbit hole I realized that I didn't know who had directed Captain EO. Went over to imdb and found out; and my god is it a whopper: Francis Ford Coppola.

For a dose of perspective Captain EO was filmed 7 years after "Apocolypse Now" and concurrently with "Peggy Sue Got Married" in 1986. Michael Jackson was almost at the crest of his fame having debuted the moonwalk two years earlier and having just sung "We Are the World." So it was a logical pairing.

Old Hyundai Ad

2006-08-31T08:59:00.000-07:00

I saw this when it first came out and I was living in France. That means it has been around for a while because that was in 1997. In 2001 it was voted the "Gayest Commercial of all Time" as reported in the San Francisco Chronicle.

One of the vote collectors was Commercial Closet - which shows all gay ads.

The company which produced it, Leo Burnett Co., seems to have produced a ton of gay-themed ads. But when you are the 9th biggest ad agency in the world I guess you produce a ton of everything. Too bad they couldn't produce a decent website. I hate that goddamn pencil.

Nutri Grain

2006-08-30T19:22:00.000-07:00

I saw this ad a couple days ago and just kind of sat there stunned for a second afterwards.

Apparently (and I was wondering who made 90 second ads), it was a spec commercial done for the demo reel for LA based Turnpike Films (for some reason this link takes you to visual future...), and was made in 2003. So it ain't new.

The director was Justin Reardon (his bottomless bottle of beer ad is also a sweet one), and apparently there was a reel with seven spoof spots on it, but every link I click on goes to Visual Future. Which is some sort of Kansas city search engine optimization company. Bizarre.

And on a sidenote Renny Maslow at Smuggler beat him out in 2004 for a Young Directors Award in the Non European Test Commercials category for his commercial Checkout. I think I would have gone with Justin. Renny's is just a bit too hip or something for me. I mean look at the guys hairdo (in the commercial).

WELCOME TO AD_FILTER

2006-08-30T19:06:00.000-07:00

So it begins. This will be an attempt by DEERPLOW to post a daily or semi-daily smattering of those ads which we have been watching and enjoying. We do not know all that much about the ad industry right now - except that directors make like 25000/day - but hopefully over time and with the help of this blog we will learn a bit.

If you have any ad sites you think we should check out please let us know.

DEERPLOW