Sometimes you’ve got to wonder if the clients and creatives who make commercials for diapers and other baby products are stuck back in the 1950s. The depictions of moms tend to be rather old fashioned and boring, and when do you ever see dads in these spots?
Recognizing that modern parents are much hipper than they’re often given credit for, JWT, New York, came up with a new campaign for Huggies diapers with unexpected executions.
Some examples: A :30 titled “Little Ducky,” directed by Rocky Morton of bicoastal/international MJZ, has a rubber ducky slyly trailing his baby friend, eagerly awaiting the little one’s next bath; and a :30 titled “Geyser,” directed by Bryan Buckley of bicoastal/international Hungry Man, finds a guy trying to change his baby’s diaper on a bed cluttered with guests’ coats during a party, and– let’s just say you wouldn’t want your coat to be on that bed.
The more anthemic of the Huggies work, a :30 titled “Big Baby” also directed by Buckley, has been chosen as this week’s SHOOT Top Spot. “Big Baby” is set in an office and finds adults acting like babies in the workplace. There is no dialogue. We simply see men and women dressed in their corporate best but functioning like helpless infants as they try to conduct meetings, take phone calls and make photocopies. The spot concludes with a shot of a real baby in a diaper crawling away from the camera and the Huggies tagline, “What you’d wear.”
Asked about the thinking behind “Big Baby,” JWT creative director/copywriter Richie Glickman explained that the commercial aims to “tap into the empathy parents have for their children.”
Office setting It has to be noted that this might very well be the first time we’ve ever seen a commercial for diapers set in an office. JWT’s creative team, which included copywriter Laura Fegley and art director Ann Lemon, encouraged Huggies to take a chance and go with an office environment, according to JWT executive creative director Walt Connelly.
“It pushed the idea further. The one place you are supposed to act like an adult is in an office. So it pushed the comedy,” Connelly reasoned.
Buckley and DP Scott Henriksen shot “Big Baby” at the old Los Angeles Times office building after finding actors through an open casting call during which Buckley sought men and women who could look and move like babies in a natural way without looking creepy. “You just saw it when it worked. It didn’t feel forced,” Buckley said, adding, “It’s very interesting. You could bring in a very skilled actor who could do anything yet he couldn’t do this.”
The director cast all actors, with the exception of one dancer, who specializes in a form of dance known as liquid dancing that in some ways resembles popping but is much more fluid. The dancer is the first performer seen in “Big Baby,” playing the briefcase-carrying businessman who tries to walk through a parking garage but gets wobbly and falls to his knees. “We wanted to make an impression right off the top, so that’s why we led with him,” Buckley pointed out.
To their credit, the rest of the actors also performed well, Buckley said, with some excelling at clapping, while others were expert crawlers.
Did Buckley hire a movement coach to instruct his performers? “No, I have three kids,” he replied.
To accentuate the actors’ motions, Buckley shot everyone at 30 frames per second, and to add fluidity between scenes, he kept the camera moving for the most part, dollying left or right, or pushing in. “It helped move the action along through the course of a day without us having to do dissolves later,” Buckley said.
Run and gun
With only one day to shoot the spot, Buckley moved quickly. “I loved how Bryan worked,” Connelly praised. “He’s a real, ‘Let’s get it and keep moving and not waste time on an idea that’s not working’ guy. He’s got a real run and gun attitude and got us more than we needed.”
Gavin Cutler of New York’s Mackenzie Cutler edited “Big Baby.” “The thing that Gavin was great at–and this was talked about a lot in prepping for the job–was making sure that the people didn’t go too far,” Connelly said. “Gavin was really good at grabbing the pieces that made you laugh but didn’t make your skin crawl.”
Connelly also credited Cutler with allowing the story told in “Big Baby” to unfold slowly. Well, as slowly as a story can unfold in a :30 spot. As noted before, the commercial opens with a man carrying a briefcase struggling to stay on his feet while walking through a parking garage. Initially, one would never guess that this was a commercial for Huggies.
“It’s a pretty edgy spot,” Buckley acknowledged. “For the first ten seconds you’re like, ‘Is this for drinking and driving?’ It’s weird, and then it starts to come together, and you start to get it.”
The Huggies project marked the first time Buckley worked with JWT as well as Huggies, by the way, and he said it was a great experience.
“They were open to interpretation of the commercials,” Buckley related. “I wasn’t looking over my shoulder the whole way.”
For his part, Connelly credited Buckley with raising the stakes and making “Big Baby,” “Geyser” and another yet-to-be-released spot anything but typical diaper commercials.
“Big Baby” is not currently running in the United States. The spot actually launched in the United Kingdom and Europe. But it will likely run in the U.S. before the end of the year.
