As the saying goes, put an infinite number of monkeys at typewriters and eventually one of them will write Hamlet.
A new spot for VoiceStream Wireless via Publicis Seattle gives that scenario an updated twist by depicting two chimps typing and sending instant text messages to each other—even if their dialogue is hardly Shakespearean. Touting the client’s Ping Pong text messaging service, this humorous ad entitled "Coffee Shop" was directed by Hank Perlman of bicoastal/international hungry man.
The commercial opens in a jungle setting where a chimp named Phil is messaged on his blue Motorola V100, a VoiceStream product with a full keyboard and display screen. "Hey, Phil. The streak is over," the text reads. Phil punches keys to create his reply: "What streak?" The response: "You know, my dry spell."
The situation is made apparent as we cut to the other chimp, Hank, holding his VoiceStream phone in a coffee house. Seated at a table in the foreground and wearing a short-sleeved shirt, he turns to look at an attractive woman at another table. Sexy, but wholesome, she smiles winningly at him while stirring her coffee. Their flirtation continues as they take turns shyly looking downward, then up again.
The creative team consisted of Publicis co-president/chief creative officer Kevin Kehoe, who also served as art director, and copywriter Jim LeMaitre; producer Jan O’Malley rounded out the team. Kehoe said the ad (and its companion :30 spot, "Symphony") was targeted to a younger demographic. "Text messaging is the next big wave of wireless," noted Kehoe. "It’s huge in Europe; it’s almost like a subculture among young people there. It’s going to catch on in the States."
Because the goal was to capture younger consumers, the creatives deliberately opted to not cast teens in the ad. "Sometimes," Kehoe explained, "when you put young people in a spot, they call bullshit on it—it either doesn’t relate to them, or they don’t see themselves as the ad depicts them, so they resent it. They’re very cynical."
It was LeMaitre’s idea to use chimps to convey the way teens would use the product, and to show the kinds of things they might say to each other. Kehoe observed that having the chimps "play it straight" represents an untraditional use of simians in advertising. "Usually you’re laughing at it because it’s a chimp—not because it’s a chimp that doesn’t know it’s a chimp. That’s why we thought it was an interesting take."
Perlman related that this depiction of the chimps was partly what attracted him to the job. "It seemed like an ironic twist on the typical use of animals in commercials," he said. "I liked the fact that instead of having chimpanzees doing jokey, funny things, they were doing mundane, ordinary things. They felt like anti-commercials to me."
The opportunity to collaborate with LeMaitre also appealed to Perlman, who has known the copywriter since the days when both worked at Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore. "I always thought Jim was a really good, funny writer," noted Perlman. Kehoe agrees that LeMaitre’s writing struck just the right note, and added, "Jim did an amazing job of finding that little truth of how guys feel when they finally hit the jackpot … I think the spot captures that in a really innocent way."
Perlman directed the spot on location at a Santa Monica coffee house, the patio area of which doubled as the jungle setting. The one change from the original script, made at LeMaitre’s suggestion, involved altering a restaurant/diner/coffee shop setting. "We thought it would be funnier if the chimp were hanging out in a hip, Starbucks-kind of place," said Perlman.
To further create the image of a cool chimpanzee, Perlman loaned "Hank" his own Diesel watch, an oversized timepiece with a large square face, that he’d bought the day before. "The frame of reference we had was that he should be dressed like Johnny Depp," explained Perlman. "We thought about putting him in biker shorts, but it didn’t look as good, so we went the cool, hip, trendy way."
Supervised by animal trainers at Bob Dunn’s Animal Services, San Fernando, Calif., the chimps (there were six in all) were well behaved on set. But an unexpected complication arose when "Phil" (whose actual name is Jacob) became … excited. "We actually ran into a lot of problems with the chimpanzee having this giant erection," laughed Perlman. "It was funny—it was one of those things they don’t teach you how to handle in film school. After a while, we decided we had to keep shooting. I’d say half the dailies show him in a state of arousal. We tried to reposition him but, for the most part, there wasn’t much we could do about it. He was a happy, happy monkey."
Ultimately, editor David Checel of FilmCore, Santa Monica, saved the day by finding select pieces of film in which Jacob is appropriate for family viewing.
"I can’t say enough good things about [Perlman]," concluded Kehoe. "It’s probably because he’s a writer who happens to be a director, instead of a director trying to understand writing. He’s all about the idea, and knows exactly what needs to land on the film."
