Canadian agency Zulu Alpha Kilo has perfected the art of making fun of agencies going over the top to win awards. Last year, it parodied how hard agencies sell themselves with “Awards Gone Wild,” poking fun at embellishing results of case videos, creating bogus campaigns or running ads without client approval.
The agency has another winner this year with “Left-Handed Mango Chutney,” which takes place at a dinner party.
At a table with eight people, a brain surgeon describes how he saved a life. An ad exec then chimes in touting his case study about a limited-edition left-handed jar of chutney, while his tipsy wife downplays his accomplishments. The rest of the party looks on in puzzled blank stares. When another diner says that she too is in advertising, someone asks what work she did.
“I wrote the beer ad where the horse farts,” she says, as the rest of the table cheers her creative.
The two-minute film plays off the fact that some of the most awarded work isn’t well-known, nor for products that sold well. Zulu Alpha Kilo is reminding the industry that advertising’s most important goal is to resonate with consumers first and awards judges second.
“Left-Handed Mango Chutney” debuted at last night’s Agency of the Year competition in Toronto, an annual awards show hosted by Strategy magazine, a Canadian trade publication for the industry.
As part of the show, the top agencies are invited to create their own self-promo videos about whatever subject they want. Zulu has often used these videos as a platform to push back against the industry’s sacred cows. Aside from “Awards Gone Wild,” the agency has also produced “Say No to Spec,” which started a movement against spec work in new business pitches, “World’s Worst RFP,” satirizing the RFP process, and “Billy’s Lemonade” which lampooned holding companies.
As with the previous Zulu videos, agency founder and CCO Zak Mroueh once again directed this year’s video through the agency’s in-house production arm, Zulubot. This is also his third consecutive collaboration with the creative team of Jonah Flynn and Michael Siegers.
Besides screening one of the most controversial videos of the night, Zulu Alpha Kilo also won Silver Agency of the Year.