Last year, Great Guns, London, produced a series of viral Internet ads directed by Eden Diebel for AppealNow.com via London agency Nitro. Two of the spots, “Kicking” and “Bingo,” each went on to win a Gold Cyber Lion at the 2005 Cannes International Advertising Festival.
Fast-forward to today and Great Guns is back for a return engagement, with a couple of new significant wrinkles. For one, James Spence is directing the latest batch of viral Web fare for the client, and this time for agency Clemmow Hornby Inge, London.
However, the spirit of the work remains intact–taking U.K. traffic wardens to task for abuses, resulting in people being ticketed unfairly for alleged infractions. The scenarios are a bit extreme but done so to make an indelible impression in viewers’ minds. In the aforementioned “Kicking,” for example, a man who’s walking across the street is suddenly attacked by a traffic warden. The male warden wrestles him to the ground, hitting the victim repeatedly. Meanwhile a female warden looks at her watch, waiting for time to elapse so she can slap a parking ticket on the victim’s car. She does just that, then jumps over the beaten man’s body laying in the middle of the street and makes good her escape with the other warden. A tagline advises people who have been wrongly ticketed to log onto AppealNow.com.
Looking to create the same buzz that the original campaign generated, AppealNow.com has unveiled a trio of viral commercials: “Roll,” “Blindfold” and “Line.”
In the latter, one warden holds a bucket of yellow paint as a colleague dips a brush into the bucket and paints the curb and a corner border on the pavement–surrounding one side of an unattended parked car. This unilateral changing of the rules then “justifies” the warden slapping a ticket on the windshield; the two officials then briskly walk away from the scene.
In “Roll,” five wardens team to roll a car over a full revolution and in the process move the vehicle from one side of the road to the other. The rationale for this is to cite the now damaged vehicle for being illegally parked. The five officers then scurry off when hearing the protests being voiced by presumably the victimized motorist who is off camera.
And in “Blindfold,” a female traffic warden’s eyes are covered and fellow wardens spin her about in an attempt to disorient her. She feels her way along a city street. Looking like she’s in search of a piñata, it turns out that instead she’s navigating her way carefully towards a parked car. Her hands extend to feel her surroundings; she finally reaches her destination–her palms touch the car’s windshield. She sticks a ticket to the glass and then runs off with her warden accomplices.
Each spot ends with a supered query: “Received an unfair parking ticket?” This is then accompanied by the Web site address, www.AppealNow.com.
While AppealNow.com doesn’t suggest that its spots literally reflect parking attendants’ behavior, the humor in the campaign underscores that unfair and illegally issued parking tickets are indeed issued far too often. The system to appeal unjust tickets is complex and bureaucratic; AppealNow.com was formed to help cut through the red tape.
Going back to last year, the spots have generated a buzz and raised awareness of parking warden abuses. The viral spots have also spread the word that the general public does have some recourse against unfair warden practices. And in some circles it’s believed that the campaign has caused some heavy-handed local authorities to ease off on strict quotas of parking tickets imposed upon traffic wardens.
The creative team of Mister & Missus worked on the latest campaign from Clemmow Hornby Inge. Spence’s support team at Great Guns included executive producer Laura Gregory (who is also managing director of the company) and producer Kojo Abban. The DP was Nic Knowland.
Editor was Andy Philips at Chophouse Editing, London. Colorist was Ben Rogers of Framestore CFC, London. Audio post mixer was Anthony Moore of Factory Studios, London.
Supreme Court Seems Likely To Uphold A Law That Could Force TikTok To Shut Down On Jan. 19
The Supreme Court on Friday seemed likely to uphold a law that would ban TikTok in the United States beginning Jan. 19 unless the popular social media program is sold by its China-based parent company.
Hearing arguments in a momentous clash of free speech and national security concerns, the justices seemed persuaded by arguments that the national security threat posed by the company's connections to China override concerns about restricting the speech either of TikTok or its 170 million users in the United States.
Early in arguments that lasted more than two and a half hours, Chief Justice John Roberts identified his main concern: TikTok's ownership by China-based ByteDance and the parent company's requirement to cooperate with the Chinese government's intelligence operations.
If left in place, the law passed by bipartisan majorities in Congress and signed by President Joe Biden in April will require TikTok to "go dark" on Jan. 19, lawyer Noel Francisco told the justices on behalf of TikTok.
At the very least, Francisco urged, the justices should enter a temporary pause that would allow TikTok to keep operating. "We might be in a different world again" after President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20. Trump, who has 14.7 million followers on TikTok, also has called for the deadline to be pushed back to give him time to negotiate a "political resolution." Francisco served as Trump's solicitor general in his first presidential term.
But it was not clear whether any justices would choose such a course. And only Justice Neil Gorsuch sounded like he would side with TikTok to find that the ban violates the Constitution.
Gorsuch labeled arguments advanced by the Biden administration' in defense of the law a... Read More