“The envelope, please.” During the Creative Arts Emmy Awards ceremony held earlier this month at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles, there was the obligatory hush over the capacity audience for a brief moment until the presenter read out that this year’s primetime commercial Emmy was going to Bud Light’s “Swear Jar” out of DDB Chicago.
The enthusiastic applause, though, greeting that announcement was not obligatory as the spot had been screened earlier for the industry crowd, eliciting laughter and an ovation.
Furthermore the commercial made history, pushing the Television Academy’s figurative envelope by setting two precedents–becoming the first web spot to be nominated for and then to win a primetime Emmy Award.
Actually the original plan–as reported in this week’s “Chat Room” with DDB Chicago associate creative directors Jason Karley and Galen Graham, the writer and art director, respectively, on “Swear Jar”–was for the commercial to possibly air during the 2007 Super Bowl telecast. But CBS rejected “Swear Jar” in script form, leading to it eventually gaining initial exposure on the Bud.TV web entertainment channel and then an ongoing viral life all its own.
So ironically television’s highest honor, the Emmy, was bestowed upon a spot that was first intended for TV but never made it there.
Challenges, reflections
For further backstory on “Swear Jar” as well as the other Emmy-nominated commercials, SHOOT checked in with the agency producers on these projects for insights into the challenges each job posed as well as for personal reflections on the significance of the Emmy honor.
Will St. Clair, VP/ executive producer at DDB Chicago, and agency producer on “Swear Jar,” observed, “I don’t know if it [the Emmy] would qualify as populist recognition but it is definitely recognition from the entertainment community. And as recognition that reflects entertainment value, the Emmy is quite an honor. As an agency, as a producer, as a creative–we’re all striving to meet that entertainment standard. We know that to get the eyeballs, the attention and anything that translates into what a client needs, you have to entertain.”
The spot’s premise centers on an office setting up a “swear jar” into which money will be put each time someone at work swears. The funds collected will be used to buy Bud Light for the office staffers, causing bleeped-out expletives to fly out of the mouths of employees and executives alike all over the workplace.
For St. Clair, the biggest challenge was to not rely too heavily on the cheap laughs inherently in the concept. “There’s always a prurient interest in cussing,” he said. “We all laugh at stuff like that anyway. But we couldn’t rely on that too much as a crutch.
“The thrust from the beginning ,” he continued, “was to find a director who would put emphasis on performance and creating vignettes that would come across to an audience–to the point where the viewer would imagine a little bitty story about each of the people in the vignettes. That’s why we went with David Shane as the director. The performances he captured felt reel and the office situations hold your interest.”
Shane was at bicoastal/international Hungry Man at the time he directed “Swear Jar.” (Shane has since moved over to production house oposi+ive, New York.) “David puts everything he’s got into nailing performances. There are exhaustive callback sessions. He’s never satisfied,” said St. Clair. “And that helped us elevate ‘Swear Jar’ to the spot it became.”
St. Clair also credited Anheuser-Busch for “letting us take creative risks for entertainment value. To have a client that will hold hands with you and go there–recognizing the value of entertainment–is tremendous.”
“Swear Jar” topped a field of Emmy-nominated spots this year that also consisted of Hallmark’s “Brother of the Bride” directed by Joe Pytka of Venice, Calif.-based PYTKA for Leo Burnett, Chicago, and three commercials produced by bicoastal/international MJZ: FedEx’s “Carrier Pigeons” directed by Tom Kuntz for BBDO New York with visual effects from Framestore, New York; Travelers’ “Delivery” directed by Rupert Sanders for Fallon, Minneapolis, with visual effects by Mass Market, bicoastal; and Coca-Cola’s “It’s Mine” helmed by Nicolai Fuglsig for Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore, with effects done at The Mill, New York.
“Brother of the Bride” Tom Keramidas, VP, content architect at Leo Burnett, served as producer on the agency’s Hallmark spot “Brother of the Bride.”
“Sitting at the Emmy Awards show on Saturday night, the cliche was true for me–it was an honor to just be there and to have had our work nominated,” related Keramidas.
“To be recognized in a non-advertising competition as prestigious as the Emmy Awards,” he said, “reaffirms the value of good storytelling and how well crafted commercials have come to be considered today just as valid a piece of entertainment as the television programs themselves.”
As for the spot’s biggest challenge, Keramidas cited casting, noting at the same time that there was considerable comfort knowing that Pytka was directing. “He’s a masterful storyteller who handles dialogue so beautifully,” said Keramidas. “His instincts on casting and performance are so true. While he doesn’t shoot tons of takes, everything he gives you is usable in so many ways.”
Still, casting was of paramount concern. “We knew casting would make or break the commercial,” affirmed Keramidas who described the spot’s title character (“Brother of the Bride”) as “a well meaning guy who makes a lifetime of faux pas in one afternoon at a wedding. He’s well meaning but can’t help himself. He says the wrong things at the wrong times–yet he also has to make the transition as an actor to delivering at the end of the commercial a heartfelt message to his sister. You have to cast a guy whom you like from the beginning. And when he says the wrong thing, you hurt for him. You feel for him. You aren’t laughing at him.”
Keramidas added that director Pytka and the advertising agency ensemble had the luxury of having two minutes to tell the story. (The spot debuted during a Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation; at press time, a 90-second version was being wrapped for exposure elsewhere)
“We needed the full two minutes to do justice to the character and to follow the arc of the story,” related Keramidas who added that the other luxury afforded him and his colleagues was to have a client like Hallmark. “There are so few accounts that value this kind of storytelling–emotional with real dialogue that affects people.”
“Delivery” Kate Talbott, executive producer at Fallon Minneapolis, is no stranger to the circle of Emmy nominees.
In recent years, work she’s produced at Fallon has garnered three Television Academy nominations, the first in 2004 for United Airlines’ “Interview” and then in consecutive years for Travelers’ “Snowball” and now “Delivery,” a whimsical, charming :60 that follows a dapper man toting a huge, larger than life umbrella. The enormous bumbershoot proves handy in helping people he encounters in the course of the adventures they share along the way.
For Talbott, an Emmy nomination is unlike any ad industry honor. “Everybody knows what an Emmy is. If I tell someone we’re nominated for an Emmy, they know what that is. It’s recognition that’s great for everyone involved and it breaks outside the industry into the mainstream.”
Talbott noted that her major challenge was limited time to bring such an ambitiously creative commercial to life.
“This involved a major time crunch,” she said, “but that’s when you look to the professionals to come through for you.”
She cited assorted contributors, including her Fallon colleagues, director Sanders, his spot production house roost MJZ, and production services/support company Cherokee Films in Auckland, N.Z.
Talbott said that the philosophy adopted by Sanders and the creative team–which was “the more we could shoot practically, the better off we would be”–proved to be key in the success of “Delivery.”
“We had a 20-foot umbrella prop built,” said Talbott. “You can’t fake that. It was real and it made the spot’s adventures real.”
Wieden, BBDO Earlier this summer, SHOOT garnered the reflections and recollections of Wieden+Kennedy senior producer Matt Hunnicutt on Coca-Cola’s “It’s Mine” and BBDO New York executive VP/executive producer Elise Greiche on FedEx’s “Carrier Pigeons.”
Both these Emmy-nominated commercials debuted during this year’s Super Bowl telecast.
To briefly recap, Greiche said that perhaps her biggest challenge on “Carrier Pigeons” came from it being on the Super Bowl.
“You want to do a great ad for the biggest stage of all,” she related. “You want to create compelling work and content for the client. And then to get not only a great response after the Super Bowl but then later on an Emmy Award nomination is about as good as it can get.”
Meanwhile Hunnicutt noted that Coke’s “It’s Mine” posed varied major challenges, perhaps the most daunting being, “This wasn’t just any parade. It was the Macy’s [Thanksgiving Day] Parade which people hold near and dear to their hearts. We made sure we were there for the parade to not only shoot that day but to absorb the magic and make sure it was captured and reflected in the commercial.”
By virtue of being at the parade, Hunnicutt added that he and his agency colleagues as well as director Sanders all got “a better understanding of how these balloons move.”
And of course the character balloons (Charlie Brown, Underdog, Stewie) were key. “We were working with The Mill and directing these CG balloons,” said Hunnicutt.. “If the balloons don’t work, if their authenticity is questioned for one moment, then the spot fails and the power of the idea is lost.”
