jack.son Design

You may have noticed OK Go briefly appeared in one of the Chevy commercials during the Super Bowl, and then showed up in an extended trailer for their new video right after the game. The latest and one of the best of the OK Go videos, it shows them successively whacking 1,157 homemade instruments—tuned to ensure they'd play the right note no matter where they were hit—with one Chevy Sonic. According to OK Go's press release, at first there had never been plans to show or feature any part of the video during the Super Bowl. "But then a funny thing happened. We finished the video, showed it to the bigwigs at Chevy and GM, and they fell instantly, head-over-heels in love with it. So much so that they immediately proposed a complete change of schedule to integrate it deeply into their Super Bowl plans." Unsurprisingly, it's already at well over 1 million views. And all those sounds are real. The only word for it is: amazeballs.

It's not every day that an Oscar-winning actor, at age 44, decides he wants to direct his first TV commercials—and for an unglamorous brand, at that. But that's the case with Philip Seymour Hoffman, who directed the two spots below, through The Via Agency in Portland, Maine, for People's United Bank.

The ads, running across New England and in certain metro New York markets, show the bank's employees helping people out in small ways on their way to work—because that's just the kind of people they are—and then continuing to go above and beyond in dealing with customers at the office. The conceit isn't new—it recalls, among other things, the Liberty Mutual "Responsibility" campaign. And some will call it hokey. But hokey often gets the job done with regional bank work. And Hoffman, who has directed lots of theater and one film, brings a deft touch to the work. The camera movements, in particular, are subtly engaging, imbuing the slice-of-life street scenarios with a breezy humanity that echoes, most of all, the wonderful Life Vest Inside commercial we wrote about back in December.

The cookie-cutter scenes and voiceover inside the bank that close out the spots don't quite live up to the outdoor stuff. But given the client's modest goals—to "illustrate the spirit of know-how"—this work more than succeeds on its own merits. So, why did Hoffman want the gig? Sources tell Adweek he wants to get his feet wet with smaller directing projects in the hope of taking on larger projects in the future. "Working with Philip was a true pleasure," says Greg Smith, chief creative officer at The VIA Agency. "His presence as a director is equal to that of his acting. He's very cerebral and yet instinctive. As a director I think he brings a real lyrical quality to the work. It all feels real and grounded but also a little wonderful."

Smith adds: "More than anything People's United Bank and VIA have teamed up to own the concept of know-how and what that means in consumers' lives. It's a unique brand of know-how, though, that we want to communicate. It's real, practical and caring. But it's also clever. It has that little twist, that says we get things done."

It will be interesting to see where Hoffman goes from here.





CREDITS:
Client: People's United Bank
Agency: The Via Agency, Portland, Maine
Chief creative officer: Greg Smith
Creative director: Ian Dunn
Associate creative director: Chad Vander Lugt
Producer: Jennifer Klumas

Will Ferrell's series of local Old Milwaukee ads—which were shot and aired only in Davenport, Iowa, Terre Haute, Ind., and Milwaukee—was one of the funnier and more peculiar campaigns of 2011. So, it's nice to see the pairing add a Super Bowl commercial last night. In the spirit of the campaign, it was apparently the most enthusiastically local of local buys, with Deadspin reporting that it aired only in North Platte, Neb. That is evidently the hometown of New England running back Danny Woodhead, for what it's worth. Like the previous spots did, this one makes fun of the themes and structures of advertising, with Ferrell walking, gecko-like, through amber waves of grain and then getting cut off before he even begins his sales pitch. Also like the previous spots, good luck finding a version of this one that looks even halfway decent. The brand linked to an even crappier version from its Facebook page. All in the spirit of authenticity and anti-glamour, perhaps.

See Adweek's full Super Bowl coverage here.