Classic board game Scrabble is all about playing with words, so why wouldn’t an ad for the game show a similar love for wordplay? Lola, Mullen Lowe’s Spanish operation, does just that in “Anagram Christmas,” its holiday ad for the game, which is distributed by Mattel in Europe.
The ad opens with a voiceover delivering the line, “At least once a year, magic actually happens.” This leads into a bunch of anagrams connected to action onscreen, such as “Violence has the chance to turn into Nice Love,” “Those who live in a silent world can also start to listen” and “The one you thought was a monster can become one of your closest mentors. It’s a clever approach, tied to the action of the game itself, and that the action is able to advance in a linear fashion while delivering such wordplay is also impressive. It might lose steam the second time around (the agency employed a very similar tactic in “Anagram Lovers”) but it still makes for an entertaining ad that’s more clever than most, especially when compared to run of the mill holiday efforts.
Credits:
Client: Mattel
Product: Scrabble
Client contacts: Tharyn Estevez, Montse Franch
Spot: “Anagram Christmas”
Agency: Lola/Mullen Lowe
Chief Creative Officer: Chacho Puebla
Executive Creative Director: Pancho Cassis
Creative Directors: Tomás Ostiglia, Juan Sevilla
Copywriter: André Toledo
Art Directors: Lucas Reis, Saulo Rocha
Global Business Director: Tom O’Brien
Account Director: Rocío Abarca
Account Supervisor: Jessica Otero
Director of AV Production: Cristina Español
Producer: Florencia Caputo
Production House: Canada
Director: Marçal Forés
Executive Producer: Oscar Romagosa
Head of Production: Alba Barneda
Producer: Laura Serra Estorch
Post Production: Ymagis
Sound and Music: Antfood