Television commercials produced for financial services companies generally don’t fall into the category of standout work. “Most of the advertising is either the founder walking around talking, or some actor that you theoretically trust in his fifties or sixties walking around talking about how much you can trust the company. So much of it is just kind of the same and/or forgettable,” maintained Peter McHugh, chief creative officer of Carmichael Lynch, Minneapolis.
Given that reality, McHugh and his creative team, which included creative director/copywriter Tom Camp and art director Jason Smith, strove to create something utterly unforgettable for financial services firm A.G. Edwards. The result is a campaign composed of three spots–“Runway Egg,” “Nest Eggs” and “Care For”–featuring not a talking head but an actual egg that literally represents the nest egg.
“It was tricky because the nest egg thing is a cliché,” McHugh conceded. “The challenge for us was to elevate it.”
McHugh and his creative team could have wound up with egg on their faces–so to speak. But Carmichael Lynch rose to the challenge, creating three clever spots brought to life by director/cameraman Lance Acord of Park Pictures, New York. SHOOT chose to highlight “Care For” (:30) as Top Spot of the Week.
“Care For” finds a family consisting of a dad (played by Brian Finney), a mom (Valorie Keegan) and a young daughter (Antonia Fuller) nurturing their nest egg as if it were a member of the family. For instance, we see the family–and their egg–watching TV, frolicking at the beach and roasting marshmallows over a campfire. We even see the egg getting a piano lesson and being bathed.
A GOOD EGG
While another spot in the A.G. Edwards campaign, “Runaway Egg,” which has a lone man chasing his egg as it rolls through the streets of Los Angeles and features effects work done by Digital Domain, Venice, Calif., offers a chase scene as good as any in a feature film, SHOOT chose the quieter “Care For” as Top Spot because in depicting the egg within the context of a family unit, the spot drives home the nest egg analogy.
“People do try to care for their nest eggs, but they don’t always do the best job,” McHugh shared. “So in this commercial we were trying to dramatize that and just say that there is a better way to take care of your nest egg than pretending it is part of your family.”
“Care For” concludes with a voiceover (provided by David Paluck) intoning: There’s an even better way to care for your nest egg–objective financial advice. A.G. Edwards–for 108 years fully invested in our clients.”
McHugh was thrilled to discover that a lot of A-list directors were interested in tackling the A.G. Edwards campaign. Carmichael Lynch decided that Acord was the right person for the job. “I just had a sense of reassurance with Lance,” McHugh said, noting that he has worked with Acord on various jobs over the years–most recently, the adidas “Impossible Is Nothing” campaign he creative directed last year while at 180/TBWA, Amsterdam.
Acord, who spoke to SHOOT while on a break from shooting director Sofia Coppola’s latest feature, Marie-Antoinette, on location in France, agreed to take on the assignment because he thought each ad offered him “a fun little story to tell visually.”
At the outset of the project, much debate went into how to construct the eggs–nearly two-dozen jumbo eggs were required for use in “Care For” alone. Ultimately, production designer Jeff Mann constructed the eggs out of styrofoam covered with layers of nautical fiberglass.
With his cast of actors and eggs, Acord shot all three spots in the campaign on location in Los Angeles. “Care For” called on locations ranging from a family home to the beach.
As for the scenarios, the creatives at Carmichael Lynch and Acord had brainstormed to come up with a list of several. But there was room to play around during the shoot, McHugh reported, noting, “Because Lance is a director/cameraman and is able to work quickly, you can get in and get four takes on something like the bathtub scene, then be gone and keep the crew relatively small and work fast.”
When it came to the performances, Acord called on his cast to act natural and realistic as opposed to a broad, comical manner. “I felt really strong about that because it’s such a ridiculous idea–there was something kind of preposterous about the whole idea from the start, and I didn’t want to go over the top,” Acord reasoned.
Eric Zumbrunnen of Spot Welders, Venice, Calif., cut “Care For.” (Zumbrunnen has since joined the newly opened Santa Monica office of Final Cut–SHOOT, 4/22, p. 9.) Both McHugh and Acord credited the editor with culling through numerous takes to find the appropriately subtle performances.
Meanwhile, Digital Domain enhanced the egg in a few shots seen in “Care For” to make it stand out and prevent it from getting lost, McHugh said.
The upbeat music track for “Care For” was composed by Ren Klyce of Mit Out Sound/M.O.S., Sausalito, Calif. “The music worked well with the film,” McHugh remarked. “It didn’t work harder than the film, and it didn’t just sit there.”
As for the eggs, they are all being, uh, cared for. “We have one here [at Carmichael Lynch], I think Lance has one, and then the client has the other 20 or more down in their office,” McHugh shared.
Acord confirmed that he did indeed keep one of the eggs for his kids. “There is one of them sitting in our house right now,” Acord said, adding, “The fun thing about them for the kids is they are pretty indestructible because of the technique we used to make them.”
It is entirely possible that Carmichael Lynch might have to scramble to make more eggs. When asked if the agency will produce more commercials featuring the sure-to-be iconic characters, McHugh responded, “God, I hope so!”
