Hill Holliday launched a new campaign fro Bank of America featuring a series of spots helmed by legendary comedic director Christopher Guest.
The campaign takes a bit of a meta approach, opening with a look at a brainstorming meeting for the bank’s Preferred Rewards program in “Pillars.” From there, the team gradually tacks on more ideas, eventually deciding to work with Billy Idol on the ad campaign, although things don’t go quite so well. Each spot (obviously) takes a comedic approach, with suggestions ranging from a shrimp bar at the bank to slippers that say “Preferred” on the left slipper and “Rewards” on the right one to Billy Idol singing the word “more” exactly 25 times. Despite Guest‘s involvement, and typical handling of comedic pacing, the humor never truly lands. Still, the dryly comedic approach is welcome in the category and the humor is always tied to the brand’s message.
The first broadcast spot, “Pillars” breaks tonight during the debut of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, with the rest of the series following on late night programming such as The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Late Night With Seth Meyers and The Late Late Show with James Corden for the next four weeks. Bank of America began pushing the content through its social media channels on September 4, including additional digital videos.
“The [late-night] audience has the intellect and the age and the right demographic for this, and we wanted to see how they would react,” Hill Holliday group creative director Spencer Deadrick told AdAge. “We thought, what better place to get this out this year?” he added, referring to the premiere of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.