Sweet Smell of Success

Michael Weinzettl on a couple of recent campaigns that make a splash through execution alone.

I've recently come across a few commercials that succeed on brilliant execution alone. In other words, in terms of concept they are not at all original, but the way they were made is so striking, that they manage to stand out from the rest of similar offerings.

One of these is perfume advertising, a category that frequently heralds some of the most vapid and pretentious types of advertising. (Just watch any ad break before Xmas.) In this case, however, for Mr. Burberry, the execution is so good that I tend to forget about the inherent vacuousness of the genre.

Not surprisingly, the Mr. Burberry commercial has a well-known and highly esteemed feature film director at its helm. It is none other than Steve McQueen, the British artist – recipient of the 1999 Turner Prize who became an Oscar-winning director of feature films (Hunger from 2008, Shame from 2011 – the only one of his films I myself have seen and cherish – and 12 Years a Slave from 2014, winner Best Picture at the Academy Awards of that year). It's his first foray into commercials. "I wanted to convey the idea of two people who are passionately in love, and go off on a dirty weekend," he told UK tabloid Daily Mail. "It's that moment in a relationship where all you are thinking about is each other, and all you want is to be with each other." So far, so banal. The film, however, is very beautiful indeed with its effect heightened by the soundtrack, British singer/songwriter Benjamin Clementine's I Won't Complain. (27-year-old Clementine, a former homeless man and busker in the Paris metro, was the winner the 2015 Mercury Music Prize and is considered by many to be one of the most promising musical artists around.) Brand-appropriately, the city of London – though possibly due to McQueen's unique vision not exactly the kind of London you'll find easy to recognize  – figures prominently.

Client: Burberry. Title: Mr. Burberry. Director: Steve McQueen.

 It must be fun for the creatives (in the case of Mr. Burberry all of them in-house under the creative leadership of ed by Christopher Bailey, Burberry's chief executive and chief creative) to work on perfume ads. Not so much I guess on ads for banks, given the perceptions consumers have nowadays of the financial sector. Which makes a quartet of new commercials for the Chase Consumer Bank created by Droga5, New York even more remarkable.

The concept is basic and has been done hundreds of times: the ads show people mastering their financial futures with a help from the bank. We get four different stories including a father setting aside money for his young daughter's education, a recently single mom planning her own future as well as her son's, and an older couple – decidedly non-mainstream as their choice of their pet, a mini pig, signals. But it's not the "what" that makes these films tower way above most of what can be seen in this category. It's, once again, the "how", the brilliant writing and execution of the commercials. An no wonder really: among the directors of the spots we also find another famous name: Kathryn Bigelow, the first woman ever to win a Best Director Academy Award, (for the The Hurt Locker, in 2010) is behind the "Back in the Game," the story of a recently divorced woman setting out on a first date and getting advice from her teenage son. These four commercials for me pretty much exemplify what John Hegarty called the "refreshing of an idea." To me they succeed splendidly in that.

Client: Chase Consumer Bank. Title: College Savings with Fairy Dadmother. Agency: Droga5, New York. Creative Directors: David Droga,Ted Royer, Don Shelford, Jonathan McMahon, Lisa Fedyszyn. Art Directors: Eoin McLaughlin, Beth O'Brien, Camilo De Galofre. Copywriters: Oriel DavisLyons, Thom Glover, Mo Said. Production Company: Reset. Director: Reynald Gresset.

Client: Chase Consumer Bank. Title: A Single Mom Prepares for the Future. Agency: Droga5, New York. Creative Directors: David Droga,Ted Royer, Don Shelford, Jonathan McMahon, Lisa Fedyszyn. Art Directors: Eoin McLaughlin, Beth O'Brien, Camilo De Galofre. Copywriters: Oriel DavisLyons, Thom Glover, Mo Said. Production Company: Reset. Director: Kathryn Bigelow.

Client: Chase Consumer Bank. Title: Two Confident Retirees Prepare for Their Retirement. Agency: Droga5, New York. Creative Directors: David Droga,Ted Royer, Don Shelford, Jonathan McMahon, Lisa Fedyszyn. Art Directors: Eoin McLaughlin, Beth O'Brien, Camilo De Galofre. Copywriters: Oriel DavisLyons, Thom Glover, Mo Said. Production Company: Reset. Director: Adam Hashemi.

Client: Chase Consumer Bank. Title: Partners For Life Protect Their Future. Agency: Droga5, New York. Creative Directors: David Droga,Ted Royer, Don Shelford, Jonathan McMahon, Lisa Fedyszyn. Art Directors: Eoin McLaughlin, Beth O'Brien, Camilo De Galofre. Copywriters: Oriel DavisLyons, Thom Glover, Mo Said. Production Company: Reset. Director: Johnny Green.