Always outnumbered. Generally overdresssed.

Monday, December 15, 2008

The best thing not on Brand Republic



I'm trawling BR for an article I'm writing for The Racist Quarterly. Someone had linked this as a reference for the Wiedens Nokia TV. I remember watching this film (The Rules of Attraction) and not liking it much - I mainly recall Dawson from Dawson's Creek beasting himself, that was a feature. But this is everything I like about Bret Easton Ellis in a readily digestible 5 minute nugget. I've done an ordinary amount of backpacking, and always wondered what it was for - I think it is an inflated commodity and that we, as advertisers, are partly responsible for its fetishisation in our culture. There's definitely something weird going on with buying stuff and buying experience - just go to Terminal 5.

The other day the art director explained to me that the purpose of life was to gain experience. I found this somewhat strange, coming from someone who spends the greater part of their life in a small room, with me.

Here's the Wiedens Nokia ad, just in case you haven't seen it:



I reckon the source for the use of "we" is this moderately successful book about life in an ad agency, And then we came to the end . I quite liked it, I asked Scamp about it and he said he "couldn't get to the end." You've been warned.

I like the Wiedens spot, I'd slightly worry that it looks like a middle-aged person's view of a young person's life and, therefore, like a rather envious parody. I wonder how it's going down with the kids.

2 comments:

Ben Kay said...

I got to the end of Then We Came To The End. The last 200 pages were fairly disappointing.

What's interesting about this Nokia ad is the voiceover. If you're a copywriter you'll know just how many rewrites that went through. And it ended up a bit blah. Kind of like that dreadful Nike ad where EdWARD Norton does the VO. It smacks somewhat of being pleased with itself, which I believe is quite a crime.

william said...

ITIABTWC, Dave Trott and Scamp are all commenting - I'm like the advertising blogger's blogger.

I won't join you in dissing Wiedens if you don't mind because, like everyone else, I secretly long to work there.