Creative: What's New

What's New - PortfolioBRITISH AIRWAYSAgency: M&C Saatchi, New YorkClient: British Airways,London Creative Director/Copywriter: Marty CookeArt Director: Alice Ann WilsonPhotography: Cheryl KoralikPipe-smoking "British explorers" and all, this campaign could hardly be more out of step with Tony Blair's ultra-modern "New Britain." Another ad in the series links the airline's know-how to the fact that "Certain British ladies were curiously drawn to the Southern Oceans." Still another invokes the "proper Englishman" on safari as foreshadowing BA's skill in making passengers comfortable in any corner of the world. One almost expects an ad linking the airline's navigational savvy to fox hunting. Conspiratorial-minded Brits may see the campaign as the Tory Saatchis' subversion of the Blairites' rebranded Britain. In fact, it simply makes sense to use idiosyncracies of national heritage to define the British Airways brand. Boasts of solicitous service make little impression on us, since every carrier voices them. But the peculiarities of national style are an induplicable point of difference. "The British simply know how to travel," says the campaign's themeline, and it comes across as more than puffery-precisely because it speaks of a whole people and not of a single brand. We accept the notion BA is special because the ethnographic claim has the ring of time-honored wisdom.JACKSON HOLE MOUNTAIN RESORTAgency: FJCandN, Salt Lake CityClient: Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, Jackson Hole, Wyo. Creative Director/Copywriter: Dave NewboldArt Directors: Dave Larson, Kendal LiddlePhotography: Bob Woodall, Wade McKoy, Jonathan Selkowitz, Diana StattonThere's no need to tell skiers they'd like a jaunt to Jackson Hole. This ad goes a step farther, in effect saying they're entitled to a vacation there. That should move Jackson Hole up a notch on a reader's list of possible vacations. Don't forget that destination advertising is a competitive sport. It's not enough to tell us a week in Pago Pago would be nice; we need to be persuaded it'd be nicer than all the other places we might go instead. Moreover, since the modern vacation is as much a matter of self-expression as of self-indulgence, we must feel our choice will say something good about us. Ads for outdoorsy vacations sometimes fall short as they set a purely juvenile tone. Jackson Hole's ads appeal to one's inner child, all right, but they assume there's an outer adult as well. When another ad in this series positions Jackson Hole as a cure "for maladies of modern living," it's addressing the reader as a person with serious responsibilities-i.e., someone who needs and deserves a breather. That beats being addressed as a would-be ski bum.STEINWAY PIANOSAgency: Wallwork & Curry, BostonClient: Steinway Pianos, New YorkCreative Directors: Bob Curry, Jack WallworkArt Director: Mark BappeCopywriter: Jay CourtneyPhotography: KMark LaitaThe line of copy is tiny (probably too tiny), but it packs a punch: "A Steinway is the bridge between your mind and your soul." Back when you were reading Plato and Descartes in Philosophy 101, did you guess an ad for pianos would solve the mind-body problem? Countless ads appeal to your cheesier appetites, so you're brought up short by the rare one that caters to your soul. Indeed, you're flattered that an advertiser gives you credit for having one. And that, in turn, helps you see yourself as the sort of expansive, great-souled person who would lay out thousands of dollars to buy one of these pianos. Meanwhile, the visual helps put across the line of copy in an ingenious way: In this photograph, the piano strings mimic the cables of a suspension bridge. As with a Steinway ad last year, which focused on the keyboard, this one makes the most of the fact that a piano is a beautiful object, even when silent. Depending on the owner, it may be a beautiful object only when silent.PRICELINE.COMAgency: Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos, New YorkClient: Priceline.com, Norwalk, Conn.Creative Directors: David WecalArt Director/Copywriter: Ernest LupinacciAgency Producer: Will McDonaldAgency Assistant Producer: Marisa FiechterProduction Co.: Give & Go, New YorkDirector: Mike SimonIf you understand why you like a given commercial, it's easier to resist its sales pitch. The whole process is more or less rational, and you're in control. But what if you can't begin to explain to yourself why you like a campaign? That's the genius of the Priceline.com commercials in which William Shatner augments bad acting with hokey lyrics before veering off into Dadaist rants about airline tickets, phone service, groceries, etc. There's nothing here to like, one would suppose, but many of us are mesmerized despite ourselves. When his quasi-beat declamation of "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is" turns into a tirade about international telephone rates, we find it impossible to stop paying attention. Shatner brings to this role the same over-the-top urgency that made him television's preeminent ham actor during the heyday of Star Trek, and that makes for a pleasing contrast with the affectless irony of other dot-com commercials. Are we laughing with Shatner or at him? It's never entirely clear, and that uncertainty plays a useful role: It helps distance us from whatever embarrassment we might feel about our own avidity as bargain hunters. If nothing else, we're not as manic about shopping as this guy.

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Creative: What's New - Portfolio

Mark Dolliver

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Mark Dolliver