Ellie Kemper Crashes Old Droga5 Ads in the Agency’s New Ads for Chase

Droga5's new work for Chase's Freedom Unlimited card is advertising about advertising. It stars Ellie Kemper, who amusingly points out how the world is inundated by commercials, billboards, product placement and more—but the upside to endless ads is that, thanks to Chase, you get 1.5 percent unlimited cash back on whatever they convince you to buy.

The self-referential campaign launches with the spot below, in which the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt star, as charming as ever, navigates this world swimming in sales pitches with typical good humor and self-deprecating comedy.

In a particularly meta touch, the campaign includes other spots in which Kemper comments wryly on old ads—ones, not coincidentally, that were also made by Droga5—beginning with a Quilted Northern spot that we wrote about last May starring a frog toilet-roll holder.

More spots are forthcoming with other brand partners, beyond Quilted Northern, that are also Droga5 clients. (Not that the average viewer will be aware of that connection.) 

The idea could be dismissed as navel-gazing, and there's certainly an element of that. But Kemper's involvement balances it out: The actress—who is suddenly a major ad star, following this and her extensive Buick work—makes the work more broadly appealing and keeps it from falling too far into solipsism.

"What I love about the Chase Freedom Unlimited campaign is that it's fun and unique," she said in a statement. "The tone of the campaign is funny and fresh, and I think we're bringing the new product to life in an interesting way. We had a blast making it."

The campaign was developed with media agency Zenith. "Having a creative idea that is dependent upon media placements is a dream for a media agency to sink its teeth into," says Eric Pisick, the Chase account lead there. "We had a blast coming up with new to market opportunities that brought this funny, lighthearted notion of the inundation of sales messages to life."

"With the insight that, as consumers, we are bombarded daily by thousands of selling messages on every conceivable media, we simply decided to immerse our message within and around them," says Duncan Marshall, creative partner at Droga5. "With the help of the delightful Ellie Kemper, as well as several enthusiastic brand partners, we played with the world of the sell to promote our own."

As part of the campaign, Chase is partnering with NBC's The Voice to create custom bumpers that reference upcoming ad breaks and remind viewers they can get 1.5 percent cash back on anything those ads are selling.

CREDITS

Client: JP Morgan Chase

Campaign: Chase Freedom Unlimited "Everything Unlimited"

Agency: Droga5 NY

Creative Chairman: David Droga

Chief Creative Officer: Ted Royer

Creative Partner: Duncan Marshall

Creative Director: Casey Rand

Creative Director: Karen Short

Senior Copywriter: Pete Gosselin

Senior Art Director: Jay Hunt

Copywriter: Colin Lord

Art Director: Inna Kofman

Associate Design Director: Devin Croda

Junior Designer: Alex Lumain

Chief Creation Officer: Sally-Ann Dale

Head of Broadcast Production: Ben Davies

Executive Producer: Carlin WilsonWebb

Group Integrated Production Manager: Topher Lorette

Associate Broadcast Producer: Jackie Omanoff

Head of Interactive Production: Niklas Lindstrom

Executive Interactive Producer: Thomas Longo

Interactive Media Producer: Madison Goldberg

Senior Social Producer: Chris Parke

Associate Social Producer: Kylie Loeffler

Head of Art Production: Cliff Lewis

Senior Art Producer: Bianca Escobar

Senior Print Producer: James Deprima

Senior Retoucher: Peter Gibson

Global Chief Strategy Officer: Jonny Bauer

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