Hasta La Ideas

It’s always exciting to hear that Michel Gondry has done a new ad. And when I read that the spot, for Gillette, featured NFL players making music while working out, the potential for quirky fun seemed huge. Would the workout machines be made of cardboard boxes and string and attached to a giant oompha band? Sadly not…

Actually the spot is pretty ordinary. Yes, for a Gillette spot it’s a radical change but if you’re paying for talent such as Gondry, as well as LCD Soundsystem’s Phil Mossman, who composed the music, shouldn’t we get something more exciting?

It’s certainly well made, and getting the NFL team on board adds a frission of excitement, but even the idea of making music in unusual places feels fairly well-furrowed ground in advertising: Ford did it for cars, for example, and Nike for basketball. And then there’s the Coca-Cola and Mark Ronson tie-up for the Olympics last year.

So all in all we can’t help but be slightly disappointed, no matter how good the production values are. But having said that, we’re still a long way from ‘the best a man can get‘, which can only be a good thing.

Credits:
Agency: BBDO New York
Chief Creative Officer: Dave Lubars
ECD: Toygar Bazarkaya
Creative: Brian Wiesenthal
Director: Michel Gondry
Production company: Partizan