Seen in Contagious
After a hectic few weeks putting together issue 16 of Contagious Magazine, things in the office are getting back to normal, which means the team are back to arguing the interesting issues that we come across on a daily basis. Kicking off today’s bunfight is a new Guinness commercial from Irish International BBDO in Dublin. It’s typical big budget black stuff, showing a group of office workers turning their building into a swirling pint by flicking the lights on and off in a choreographed show to mimic the settling bubbles. The end of the ad shows the building in darkness, apart from the top three floors which are illuminated to represent the famous white head. Click on the link below to view the ad: www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQe2s36y7dA
Half of the Contagious team think it’s a gorgeous bit of creative – not going to rival ‘Surfer’ for iconic status, but then again what is? The other half is slightly concerned that such a client would opt for a creative which shows frivolous energy wastage to create some pretty images with which to flog a product. Which side of the divide do you fall?
We’re all au fait with the ins and outs of the eco-debate by now. We’ve been subject to thousands of words of editorial, to government advertising programmes, and to Al Gore reminding us that the end is going to be extremely bloody nigh if we don’t pull our socks up. We all recycle, or at least feel guilty if we don’t. We’ve stopped leaving things on standby, we walk short journeys, we bike to work, we take showers instead of baths, and we compost. Well, some of us compost. And here, it seems, is our proof that the eco-battering is working. When you see people messing round with light switches, is your kneejerk reaction not to smack them round the back of the head and tell them to have a little more consideration for the future of the planet?
Those don’t look like energy-saving lightbulbs, either. As someone here has pointed out, energy-saving lightbulbs 1) don’t turn on and off that fast and 2) even so, don’t miraculously put you in the minus figures for energy wasted. They just waste less. And how long does a shoot like that take? How many times do you have to flick the switches?
Before we got too comfortable up here on our high horses, we called Colm McNamara, group account director at Irish International BBDO, to ask him about the shoot. ‘Whilst we were pulling the idea together, we were aware of the concerns that could be raised over the creative,’ he told Contagious. ‘However, we looked at initiatives like Earth Hour, in which office buildings all turned off their lights for an hour, and see it as something similar. Guinness is black. The point of the shoot isn’t about leaving lights on – it’s more about turning them off, and our client was comfortable with it for exactly that reason. How many lights would have been left on in that building otherwise?’
Hmm. So what do you see when you look at it? A good-looking bit of advertising? Or an eco-debate waiting to happen? Drop us a line at hello@contagiousmagazine.com with your thoughts.
