It's the talk of the town right now. There's no doubt that it's beautifully made with a lot of wit and great attention to detail. But it's left me feeling a little cold, for various reasons.
Firstly, there's always the sense that BBH ads will always be greeted with great fanfare, regardless of the quality. It's almost as though there's an expectation that they'll be great, because of their big successes, and we all gather round our TVs like it's Princess Diana's funeral all over again. I know this because I wrote favourably about their BA ad when it came out, but now I think of it as overblown and self-satisfied.
There's also the additional worry that some elements look rather reminiscent of BBH's campaign for Google Chrome, and Ringwan Ledwidge almost seems like a default choice of director now. It's just getting a little bit "BBH house style".
The second objection is that it doesn't just carry the simple emotional weight of The Guardian's iconic "different points of view" ad. We have an instant emotional response to the image of a skinhead running at you, and to the twist that he's actually helping you out - which you will never get out of a slightly contrived take on a fairytale. In fact I'm struggling to remember what the "twist" in the BBH ad actually was.
The BBH ad takes 4 times as long to get across a message less effectively. And if you look at the Guardian page introducing the advert, it's clear they were looking to promote the idea of "open journalism" - whereas this advert mostly shows the news being reported in the normal way, and other people commenting on it - just as top-down a system as it ever was.
The "different point of view" ad was made by DDB in 1986. I just don't think we'll be talking about the 3 Little Pigs ad in 2038. And that's because this ad targets your brain where the skinhead ad gets you in the heart and in the gut.
No comments:
Post a Comment