Will British bottled-water purveyor Drench and ad agency CHI & Partners make a creative splash as they follow up their sublimely freaky "Cube Head" spot from last year? The new ads, for the Juicy Drench line, are set in the time-honored scientific lab, but they never match the inspired outre lunacy of the earlier effort. Sure, it's patently unfair to compare them, so that's exactly what I'll do. The cube ad worked so well because it presented a single supremely weird creation—a guy manipulating his Rubik's puzzle-style head to to get a drink—in an otherwise ordinary subway station. With no other visual distractions, the clip's weird star commanded our total attention. In contrast, the new spots are crammed with all kinds of visuals, so they lack a firm focus. Plus, they offer no juicy juxtaposition of the strange and the familiar. Everything is odd from the start. So, when "wacky" stuff ensues, our expectations are met, not exceeded. Still, these new ads do have their charms, and we're treated to a fire-hose mega-drenching of test subjects and a mobile home's merciless water-bombing from above. Sadly, they lack a cameo by Dame Judy Dench, who would seem perfect to endorse something called Juicy Drench, preferably while soaked from head to toe. Compared to the silly slapstick here, that would qualify as dry humor. One spot below, second after the jump.
