Tonal takes stock of fitness routines of yore in this cinematic gem.
Holiday campaigns can be hit or miss, but we’re getting some good ones this year. Three made our top 5 this week, and several more (Tesco in particular) could have easily made the cut.
Also this week, we got a trio of amusing wine ads as well as a striking spot for a fitness brand that harkened back to the days when directors like Jonathan Glazer and Frank Budgen were treating advertising film as a real art form.
See the full top 5 below.
With a name like Smucker’s, it has to be good. But with a name like Cupcake … you cannot be serious. Cupcake Vineyards certainly isn’t in three amusing spots from Erich & Kallman that parody the hoary trope of a wine snob patrolling the vineyards and extolling the brand’s virtues. In each ad, an onlooker punctures the smugness by pointing out that Cupcake really is a silly name. Kudos to the brand for going in this direction, and to director Andrew Laurich for getting the pacing and performances just right.
The first of the three holiday campaigns on this week’s list comes from Spain, where Ogilvy and animation house Passion Pictures told the charming tale of a robot on Mars who starts feeling lonely when he sees his human colleagues celebrating the holidays together on Earth. It’s a sweet story that unfurls charmingly, and the animation is top notch.
A similar holiday sentiment arrived courtesy of from Australian telecom Telstra. Its spot relates the unlikely story of a donkey who swallows its owner’s phone—to drown out repeated playings of “Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas”—only to become world famous as singer, since the song plays whenever the animal opens its mouth. The ending is sweet, and the end line, “Together is for Christmas,” is a nice topsy-turvy way of wrapping things up.
Ocean Spray has crashed the past few holidays with breakthrough creative. And it continues its winning streak with new iterations of an ongoing campaign starring its farmer character, Johnny. In the new spots, he pops up unannounced with holiday party and cooking tips, encouraging hosts to “just add cran” (whether it’s cranberry juice cocktail or cranberry sauce). The spots aren’t as outlandish as the brand’s previous holiday ones, but are still entertaining and will cut through the seasonal clutter.
For pure filmmaking quality, nothing topped Quality Experience and director Aube Perrie’s almost two-minute spot for Tonal this week. The at-home fitness brand began with the idea that all other fitness routines are archaic compared to its own, then brought that to life with a visually (and aurally) stunning piece of film. Dark but not overly serious, the film is largely set in past centuries, when working out was clearly a drag, then positions Tonal as the modern—indeed, future—choice. The score by Atticus Ross brings it all home. A worthy homage to spots directed by the likes of Glazer and Budgen two decades ago.
