Posts Tagged ‘smirnoff sucks’
thoughts on: the BTAAs »
Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008
It’s that time when stockings are hung with bargain bin knickknacks and well-meaning, soon-to-be-returned-for-credit gifts pile under the faux-pines decorated with fire-safe shiny things. The television flickers with ads for post-holiday sales, constantly pressuring to buy, buy, buy. A Christmas Story is on. (Always.)
How did I choose to escape the advertising assault and corporatist tsunami? Girlfriend and I went to the British Television Advertising Awards. (How’s that for paradox?) Go figure.
Most were entertaining, some were incredible and few were fantastic. Watching the Cadbury Gorilla in full theater effect was transcendent. Here’s a quick run down of a few notables:
- … There was one where a woman dressed in red went through various parts of her day. The images were then sliced and flipped through frame by frame (read: flip-book) so she appears to do cartwheels. It was sort of cool.
- … One of the first ones showed a ton of things being tossed from the oceans. Things like shipwrecks, fallen statues and trash. The effects were adequate and the concept was fun until the sell. It was a spot for Smirnoff, claiming it was pure because of distilling or something. This pronouncement ignores that Smirnoff tastes like pig scrotum. Decent concept though… you know… if a good brand were to try it.
- … Battle, a spot for Mail on Sunday, was entertaining. As long as you believe archetypes are the only possible tool in advertising. If you think originality counts for anything, you’ll get a migraine watching the sport-obsessed, childish men taking on the superficial, toy-dog-owning women fight it out.
- … And my second favorite of the night was “Key to Reserva.” It’s a web promotion, based on an hilarious premise. Martin Scorsese is going to create a film from a script that’s only three and a half pages long, written by Alfred Hitchcock. The music, the angles, the scenes, the effects. I was laughing almost the entire nine and a half minutes. Here, for your viewing pleasure (none of you are really working this close to Christmas are you?), “Key to Reserva:”
At 7:13, I nearly pissed myself.