Anyone who has ever forgotten to pick up a gift for a loved one on a special occasion—say, an anniversary, birthday or Valentine’s Day—will certainly get a kick out of a new Fujifilm commercial called "Anniversary."
The :30 is part of a three-spot campaign created by Publicis, New York, and directed by Bryan Buckley of bicoastal/international hungry man. "Anniversary" opens with a man pulling up outside of a flower shop and running up to the door—only to discover that the store is closed.
"Oh damn!" he yells. Struck by inspiration, he dashes back to the car and grabs his digital camera off the front seat. "This is gonna work," he says, as he snaps a photo of a rose in the window of the flower shop.
Back at home, Mr. Forgetful loads a disc into a Fuji photo printer; out come crisp, clean, lifelike shots of the rose.
Cut to his wife coming in the front door. She is greeted by a trail of beautiful roses—well, photos of beautiful roses. They lead up the stairs and into a candlelit bedroom where she discovers her husband lying in bed, awaiting her return with "roses" piled on his chest.
"What’s the occasion?" she asks. "It’s our anniversary," he replies, lifting his head for a smooch. His wife pulls away. "Our anniversary is next week," she informs him.
Obviously, the guy still wants some credit for his romantic gesture. "I shaved my back hair for you, baby!" he declares, as a graphic that reads "Fujifilm. Do you speak Fuji?" pops up on the screen.
The idea for this clever, charming spot sprang from the minds of Publicis’ Jim Basirico and Mark Bernath, both associate creative directors at the agency. When asked if the concept might be based on a real-life occurrence, Bernath, who served as copywriter, cracked, "I guess Jim and I are just both bastards. Our wives are usually really angry at us." Then he added, "No, I think it just sort of sprung out of the strategy of using images creatively in a problem/solution scenario."
"I haven’t pulled that trick," swore Basirico, who art directed the job. "But as Mark said, in the nature of relationships you’re always last-minute shopping or whatnot. A lot of people can relate."
Still, the spot could have easily taken a turn toward "cheesy," Buckley noted. "That was the concern: the syrup factor. We wanted to make it a nice spot—funny, but not totally corny."
Casting the right couple was a crucial factor in making the concept work. "Anniversary" features an African-American duo, notable simply because the original intention was to hire Caucasian actors. "This is where I thought Fuji was just great," Buckley pointed out. "Unfortunately, sometimes [when you’re casting], you’re in a situation where, ‘This is our demographic. If we’re selling to Caucasians, then that’s who we’re putting in the spot.’ But for this agency and client, it was all about whatever worked."
As they were casting "Anniversary," Buckley and the agency couldn’t help but notice that the two actors–Walter T. Mudu and Rochelle Hogue—had a genuine chemistry. "I think he was kind of smitten with her, and that was a neat and honest sort of thing that happened right there before us," related Bernath. "It worked."
And during the day-and-a-half-long shoot for the spot, Buckley said, the couple displayed a "playfulness that came through in every take."
While the performances were crucial, the product shots were also important. In each of short scenes, we see how simple it is to use Fuji technology to snap pictures and print them out. "Using digital technology is in some ways a hurdle for most people," Bernath observed. "But this spot brings it to a level of universal understanding, and it makes the technology accessible."
Overall, the shoot, which took the crew to locations in New Jersey, was fast and simple. Special care was taken in shooting the actual stills of the rose that were used in the spot. Using the Fujifilm technology you see in the ad, production designer Mark Friedberg (whose credits include the films The Ice Storm and Pollock) handled that task. "Understandably, Fuji was sensitive about that, so attention paid to that part of the job was huge," related Buckley.
Meanwhile, the spot’s editor, Gavin Cutler of MacKenzie Cutler, New York, scrutinized the dailies for standout moments. "The challenge with this job was that there was a lot of story to tell in a short amount of time," Cutler told SHOOT. "How do you handle the wife coming in the door? How do you reveal the photographs on the stairs? There were some choices there."
When Cutler heard the man utter the line, "But I shaved my back hair for you, baby!" he knew he couldn’t toss that gem—which was ad-libbed, by the way. "That’s my favorite part of the spot," Cutler said. Buckley agreed.
Running that line over the graphic at the end of the spot, however, meant ditching a voiceover that was to have been read by a narrator. Buckley and Cutler took a chance and delivered a cut with the memorable line. "Mark and Jim went back to the agency and the client with it, and they didn’t even have to fight for it," said Buckley. "In the end, we did it the right way, and the client loved it."
"That last moment really makes the spot," stated Basirico. "It really plusses it."
