This one’s been making the rounds for awhile now, but we thought we’d give some love anyway. McgarryBowen New York’s new spot for Verizion, “A Lot Can Happen in 48 Hours” features the talents of Ed Norton. It originally aired on December 5th, although it was posted to YouTube about a week before that.
In the spot, directed by Matthijs van Heijningen, Norton is thrown into a variety of dicey situations, with his Droid helping him get through most of them relatively unscathed. “A Lot Can Happen in 48 Hours” opens with Norton waking up to find himself in a strange room, with his Droid still at 3% power. “It’s been an interesting 48 hours,” Norton says, followed by a flashback. We then follow Norton through his series of misadventures, which begins with him finding a lost wallet and using Droid to find the location. This leads Norton to a karaoke bar, where he ogles a taken woman while singing “If I Could Turn Back Time” (the funniest part of the spot).
From here, Norton’s misadventures include attempting to land a plane, being held captive, having a key found in his stomach, playing a high-stakes game of Connect Four, and being held captive once again. Its everything-goes-wrong brand of humor borrows a little bit from The Hangover series, and although the spot seems to employ the kind of random connections Grey NY used in their 2012 DirectTV campaign, the superior execution helps keep it from feeling too easy or derivative. The spot uses a clever setup to promote the Droid’s impressive battery life, and then finds ways to showcase the phone’s other features in the process. This is certainly a far cry better than McgarryBowen Chicago’s disastrous “Denskies” campaign for Sears. Bonus points for the excellent use of a Lykke Li song. Credits after the jump.Credits:
Client: Verizon Wireless
Title: A Lot Can Happen in 48 Hours
Air Date: December 5, 2013
Agency: mcgarrybowen New York
Executive Creative Director: Cheryl Van Ooyen
Creative Director: Tiffany Smith
Associate Creative Director: Jamie Massam
Writers: Cheryl Van Ooyen, Tiffany Smith, Alex Flint
Art Director: Jamie Massam
Director of Broadcast Production: Dante Piacenza
Executive Producer: Leelee Groome
Executive Music Producer: Stephanie Diaz-Matos
Production Company: MJZ
Director: Matthijs van Heijningen
Executive Producer: Scott Howard
Producer: Mark Hall
DoP: Chris Soos, Alwin Kuchler
Editorial Company: Rock Paper Scissors
Editors: Adam Pertofsky, Neil Meiklejohn
Executive Producer: Carol Lynn Weaver
Producer: Juliet Batter
VFX: The Mill
Creative Director: Chris Knight
Executive Producer: Jo Arghiris
Senior Producer: Dan Roberts
Producer: Jillian Lynes
3D Artists: Feliz Urquiza, Blake Guest, Matt Bohnert, Ashraf Ghoniem
2D Artists: Chris Knight, Margolit Steiner, Daniel Thuresson, Chris Payne, Jake Maymudes, Tara DeMarco
Matte Painting: Andy Wheater
Motion Graphics: Byron Slaybaugh