Van Gogh and Frida Kahlo get dragged by dumb clients in AICP’s spoof of feedback process

Creating an ad that both the average viewer and the client love is challenging enough. But creating an ad that’s worthy of placement in a museum—well, you’d have your work cut out for you. 

That’s the takeaway behind two amusing short films released last week by the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP), announcing an extended deadling of March 12 for this year’s AICP Awards. 

Directed by O Positive’s Brian Billow and created by agency BBDO, “Museum Worthy” references iconic visual artists to depict how difficult it can be to create museum-worthy ads given the amount of “creative input” that is embedded into advertising’s approval process.

The film opens with Vincent Van Gogh working in his studio when two account people, dressed in period clothing, comically approach the artist bringing “feedback” delivered in contemporary marketing jargon on his classic “Starry Night.”

“The client loved the painting,” says one, “they just found it a little, um, dark.”

As the film continues, a new era ushers in account people from the 1930s similarly approaching Frida Kahlo to tell her that one of the junior clients found elements of her “Self Portrait with a Monkey” off-putting—specifically, the size of her forehead and the monkey. 

In each scenario, the feedback is unwelcome and met with irritation and hostility from the artists, who feel the painting is being changed too much.

The films underscore the fact that approvals hold things up, and that there will often be many opinions on what is deemed “worthy” of recognition. The humorous, tongue-in-cheek campaign also includes a companion short, “Focus Group,” which shows “Starry Night” getting dragged by a 19th-century focus group of folks who find it “terrifying.” 

The campaign seeks to make the serious point that if creatives want their work recognized by the AICP Awards, and ultimately reside in the film archive of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, they need to cut through the red tape and submit an entry by March 12.