Somewhere buried in the Campaign Live site is a reel of the top ten 'weird' ads.
The film below isn't in it.
But, thereagain, I never actually thought it was weird. The proposition is burned through it. Though legend has it that a dumper truck of fivers was delivered to Tony Kaye to do it and he brooked no intervention from agency or client till the whole feast was in the can, edited and purring through the U-matic player* in some conference room at AMV.
At the agency where I worked, we used to sneak it into meetings to show brand managers whose companies sold cereals or insurance. Right after the Millward Brown meeting and just before the Nielsen presentation. A bit like lacing the biscuits with LSD - copious amounts of which The Velvet Underground were possibly taking when they first recorded the music in 1967... (hey who said the Age of Rebellion is over! ;-) ).
A masterpiece. Still.
* 'U-matic'? Look it up ;-) Listed next to 'Gas Lighting', and '78 rpm Long Players' I expect.
...and the XFM kids
And thus to a radio station on which you're never going to hear The Velvet Underground, or Lou Reed, or anyone like that really...XFM. Looked after, in advertising terms, by Mother, which is co-run by a chap I used to work with.
Mother's reel is pretty good still, and though the film below isn't quite current, it uses the (fairly old but still-a-banker) idea of Kids Trying to Be Grown Ups very nicely. The idea doesn't have to be new to the world, but if you point it at a really clear strategy (new music, and only new music) and craft it well, it can do the business for you.
A paltry number of hits on YouTube really for such a nice piece of work...
(I'd add only one parting thought on it. As 'The UK's New Music Station', I wasn't expecting to find the release of a new Nirvana DVD at the top of the bill on their website this morning. Hmmm. And there's Jarvis Cocker lurking on the home page too. Brand drift?)
