Goodby, Silverstein & Partners’ :30 Touts "Really Big Bag" With Dry Humor.
CLIENT
Frito-Lay/Cracker Jack.
PRODUCTION CO.
Headquarters, bicoastal. Joe Public (Adam Cameron and Simon Cole), directors; Marc Plummer, DP; Alex Blum,
executive producer; Kati Haberstock, producer. Shot on location.
AGENCY
Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco. Rich Silverstein, co-chairman/co-creative director; Paul Hirsch, art
director; Josh Denberg, copywriter; Elizabeth O’Toole, producer.
EDITORIAL
Nomad Editing Company
Santa Monica. Jim Hutchins, editor.
POST
Company 3, Santa Monica. Stefan Sonnenfeld, colorist; Noel Castley-Wright, online editor.
AUDIO POST
Crescendo! Studios, San Francisco. Jay Shilliday, mixer.
MUSIC
Elias Associates, bicoastal. Danny Hulsizer, composer; Jonathan Elias, creative
director.
BY KATHY DeSALVO
It’s an ignominious but hilarious moment in a new Cracker Jack spot: 80-year-old actor Sylvester Jenkins, portraying a
ball-game attendee, gets squashed by a gigantic Cracker Jack box. The sequence, still ridiculously funny after repeated
viewings, is a highlight of the :30 "Sizes," created by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco.
"Sizes" was directed by British directing team Joe Public (Adam Cameron and Simon Cole) through bicoastal
Headquarters; the pair also helmed "Search" and "Fall," the other :30s in the campaign. As "Sizes" opens, a voiceover
explains that Cracker Jack comes in snack-size and family-size bags, but, "due to the tremendous response, we’re also
testing the really, really big bag." Along comes a woman pushing a cart filled up by a 12-foot Cracker Jack bag, which
sweeps everything off the store shelves as it passes by. A teenage store clerk peeks over the aisle, awed by the sheer
magnitude of the candy confection package. "That’s a really big bag," he deadpans.
In the next scene, a car pulls into a suburban driveway and proceeds into the garage, but the giant Cracker Jack box
atop the car doesn’t clear the opening—it crashes into the garage roof with a thud, breaks a light and falls to the ground.
Two small neighborhood boys watch this spectacle; one says to the other, "That’s a really big bag."
This sets up the next vignette, the ball-game sequence. Surrounded by other cheering fans in the stands, including his
tiny grandson, poor Sylvester Jenkins tries to flag down a vendor. "Cracker Jack—hey, Cracker Jack man!" he calls to
an off-camera vendor, who responds by lofting a monstrous package squarely onto the hungry fan, whoomping him
back to his seat.
The spot’s last segment features an adorable, spoiled little girl tearing open a really big bag of Cracker Jack in her
bedroom. She quickly discovers her oversized prize. "Mommy, mommy—I got a pony!" the girl squeals as her
beaming parents, dressed in identical rich-prepster garb, look on proudly. Following a product shot, the VO relates the
tag: "Cracker Jack. The greatest snack ever made."
Goodby, Silverstein won the account a year ago, and these spots are believed to be the candy’s first in nearly 20 years,
according to the creative team. Art director Paul Hirsch, who collaborated with copywriter Josh Denberg on the project,
explained that each of the spots in the campaign focused on a particular product attribute. ("Search" revolves around
the prize; "Fall" documents the origin of the Cracker Jack Bar.)
"It probably would have made the most sense to do some sort of historical, retro campaign," said Hirsch, "because
Cracker Jack’s such a part of American culture. I guess that’s why we ignored that idea and instead went for product
benefits, and made [the executions] really stupid. The bag is just so uniquely Cracker Jack, and such an icon. We really
had a lot of fun playing with it. It was easy to make it 12 feet tall."
In this sense, he added, the agency sold the spot with ease: The product is not only big but was big in every shot.
"Clients love that," said Hirsch. "Especially when you tell them the tagline is ‘The greatest snack ever made.’ "
Adding to the irreverent comedic feel was Joe Public, whom Hirsch and Denberg tapped for their humorous, real-
people sensibilities. " ‘Sizes’ had a surreal quality which we liked," said Cameron. "We just tried to give it a very, very
dry sense of humor. We thought the dryness of stating the obvious, with the repeated line ‘That’s a really big bag,’ was
funny."
Cole added that the element of destruction—destroying the supermarket shelves, breaking the light as the car goes into
the garage and pushing the man down—was equally important to the spot. "We found that if we exaggerated the
destruction and underplayed the reaction, we had something funny."
Denberg mentioned that no one was injured in the filming of the spot, including the elderly Jenkins. To minimize the
impact, they took out the stuffing that initially filled the 12-foot bag and replaced it with lighter balloons. "[With the
stuffing], the bag was really heavy," he said. "After casting this guy, we realized we could really hurt him."
A good thing, too. They wound up doing 22 takes of that shot, according to the creatives. "Simon and Adam gave us a
lot of shit for [making them do] 22 takes to hit the old man," said Hirsch, with a laugh. "They’ll probably want to point
out that we did use take 17, and that we did extra takes we didn’t need. But [Jenkins] was a fine sport."
Jigsaw, POP Sound
Take The iMac Road
CLIENT
Apple Computer/iMac.
PRODUCTION CO.
Coppos Films, Los Angeles. Mark Coppos, director; Rebecca Baehler, DP; Bill Bratkowski and Allison Nunn,
executive producers; Michael Appel, producer. Shot at Sony Pictures Studios, Culver City, Calif.
AGENCY
TBWA/Chiat/Day, Playa del Rey, Calif. Lee Clow, chief creative director; Ken Segall, creative director; Tom Witt and
Neal Hughlett, copywriters; Michael Rylander, art director; Jennifer Golub, head of production; Mila Stein, producer;
Lorraine Kraus, assistant producer.
EDITORIAL
Jigsaw Editorial, Santa Monica. Andrew Charlton, editor; Lucrezia Macri, assistant editor; Deanne Mehling, executive
producer; Megan Dahlman, producer.
POST/VISUAL EFFECTS
Company 3, Santa Monica. Michael Pethel, colorist; Noel Castley-Wright, Henry artist.
AUDIO POST
POP Sound, Santa Monica. Loren Silber, mixer.
MUSIC/SOUND DESIGN
Asche & Spencer/Venice, Calif. Thad Spencer, composer/sound designer/creative director; Chris Beaty, composer;
Hugh Barton, executive producer.
THE SPOT
The :30 "Two Roads" shows the iMac as a faster, more colorful and inexpensive route to the Internet.
Spot broke in October.
The Story Cos. Ride
At Sesame Place
CLIENT
Busch Entertainment Corp./ Sesame Place Theme Park.
PRODUCTION CO.
The Story Companies, Chicago. Trip Gruver, director; John Hora, DP; Mark Androw, executive producer; Jeff Trenner,
producer; Derrick Loris, production manager. Shot on location.
AGENCY
DDB Needham Chicago. Marcia Iacobucci, VP/creative director; Sherry Merola, producer; Jim Kelley, copywriter;
Dave Scarpelli, art director; Joya Knox, production business manager.
EDITORIAL
Optimus, Chicago. Scott Taradash, editor. (Taradash recently joined Amazon, Chicago.)
POST/VISUAL EFFECTS
Optimus. Mike Weber, online editor; Craig Leffel, colorist; Glen Noren, compositor; Marko Markewycz, digital artist.
AUDIO POST
Libman Music, Chicago. Larry Hinds, engineer/mixer.
MUSIC/SOUND DESIGN
Libman Music. Paul Libman, composer/arranger/sound designer.
THE SPOT
In the :30 "Vapor Trail," families brave a new Sesame Place ride, while Super Grover soars overhead. Mimicking the
path of the ride, Grover is seen "blasting into orbit," "cruising at warp speed" and, finally, "plunging back to earth."
Spot broke in Decem