They’re back! That earnest troupe of V-necked-sweater-wearing men has returned in full force to sing the praises of Amazon.com for the holiday season.
Last year FCB, San Francisco, debuted the all-male choral group reminiscent of the 1960s-era Mitch Miller program Sing Along With Mitch to attract shoppers to Amazon.com’s Web site. The idea was that the honesty of a bygone era would endear customers to a relatively new way of shopping. This year, the book e-tailer—which also offers toys, electronics and music, among other fare—green-lighted another five-spot holiday package featuring the popular singing group. However, at press time, SHOOT learned that the campaign would be FCB’s last for Amazon.com, as the agency resigned the account shortly after the ads broke.
Helmed by Joe Public (a.k.a. Adam Cameron and Simon Cole) of bicoastal Headquarters, the :30 "Feel Like a Kid" is set in the classic Mitch Miller style: middle aged men dressed in red V-necked sweaters, enthusiastically singing in unison. But this year, they’re a little spunkier, sporting knee-length shorts and marching like toy soldiers. The juvenile lyrics they sing, which appear along the bottom of the screen, add to the commercial’s campy feel.
The men proudly bellow: "Amazon.com is my favorite toy store./Hey, you’re not the boss of me./The greatest selection/of toys online./I know you are, but what am I!"
The song sinks to lower levels when the singers start copying each other in the manner of second-graders: "Amazon dot com … /Amazon dot com … / makes me feel like a kid./makes me feel like a kid./Stop copying me./Stop copying me." Simplistic choreography, including leaning forward every time one group sings a line, adds to the humor. But in spite of the childish lyrics, the men sing it as straight as if it were the "Ave Maria."
The troupe ends with a popular schoolyard tease: "So if you need some toys,/don’t hesitate—/it’s Amazon dot com./Say it, don’t spray it!"
Most of the spots in the campaign—which also includes such catchy titles as "EMAHTSKCBLVDT" (a pseudo-acronym for all that Amazon. com has to offer), "You’ll Never Guess What I Got You," "I Didn’t Have To Wrap Your Gift," and "Hot and Not"—were conceived by FCB, San Francisco, copywriter Patrick Durkin and art director Ron Lim. Composers Roger and Scott Wojahn of Santa Monica-based music shop Wojahn Brothers were also in on the writing. In ’99 the Wojahns were an integral part of the creative process, and "Feel Like a Kid" was, in fact, a holdover from that year’s scripts.
"Initially, all they really gave us were dozens of wacky titles, and Scott and I just took the titles that seemed the dumbest and wrote a bunch of really stupid songs. This year they knew they had to be a little more strategic, and they brought in some new writers and gave us both titles and scripts," explained Roger Wojahn.
The Wojahns recorded the songs very much as they would have done back in the days of Mitch Miller, with old analog equipment and vintage microphones. After the sound was perfected, audio tapes were brought on set for the men to lip-synch to.
Joe Public, which also helmed the campaign last year, worked with the agency to move the spots further along from a performance angle. "The first campaign was to just really introduce the idea, but this time we got them to react a little more to what they’re singing about and gave them long shorts to wear, which was a departure," Cole related.
But while trying to elevate the idea, the directing team was careful not to get into too much self-parody with over-the-top sets or performances. After all, the humor lay in the fact that these serious performers are completely unaware of the childish things they are singing.
At the time of casting, the SAG strike had yet to be resolved, so the production could not use the men from last year. As an alternative, the directors found people by canvassing church choirs and glee clubs. "When you picture people at churches, the ones that have the great voices don’t care how they look. They just love singing and they sing like they’re thrilled to be there," said FCB, San Francisco, group creative director Tom O’Keefe.
Staying true to the way television was filmed 40 years ago, Joe Public took a low-tech ap-proach to shooting. The team used old ’70s analog cameras; hired what the directors called "some of the worst crews we could find," in order to get terrible tracking shots and crane moves; and, in general, picked the cheapest, shoddiest equipment currently available.
In post, editor Avi Oron of Bikini Editorial, New York, came up with the idea to put the film through several runs of fl-inch playback to achieve an aged look. This method was accomplished at Varitel Modern Videofilm, San Francisco, by Inferno artist Tony Mills.
In the end the spots were so unique to the dot-com genre of advertising that all agreed it didn’t matter that the younger generation of consumers didn’t get the cultural reference. As Cole stated: "What is wonderful about the campaign is that you’re making a nostalgic view of an Internet company. The juxtaposition of something so nostalgic with something so new is in itself a great idea, so you don’t necessarily have to get Mitch Miller to appreciate it."
