Unlike the hapless New York Giants, San Francisco-based Goodby, Silverstein & Partners scored big-time in the Super Bowl—with its standout E*Trade spot "Monkey II" that cleverly mined humor from several sources.
Directed by Bryan Buckley of bicoastal/international hungry man, the ad is an incisive commentary on the collapse of the vaunted dot.coms—which ties in nicely to E*Trade’s tag, "Invest wisely." On another level, the commercial appears to be a witty spoof of the vintage 1971 Keep America Beautiful ad, "Crying Indian," featuring a weeping Iron Eyes Cody. The agency creative team for "Monkey II" consisted of creative director Rich Silverstein, group creative director/art director Dave Gray, copywriter Tom Miller, art director Steve Pearson and producer David Yost.
"Monkey II" is a sequel to last year’s popular Super Bowl E*Trade dancing chimp spot, "Monkey," which Buckley also helmed (SHOOT Top Spot, 2/4/00, p. 14). The same chimp, Brooks, makes a return E*Trade appearance, again wearing a white E*Trade T-shirt over a business suit. As with last year’s ad, this spot was filmed on reversal stock, which contains an emulsion that lends the spot its distinctive older look, recalling classic cinema.
In the new ad, Brooks rides a horse through a ghost town littered with such defunct dot.com companies as Pimentoloaf.com and TieClasp.com. He passes an abandoned, Denver-booted red Porsche Boxster—"the yuppie dot.comer car," explained Gray. The car’s license plate reads "DOT COMER." Finally, a wrecking ball strikes a demolishing blow to the "LeSocks. com" building, setting up the spot’s funniest moment: One of the projectiles, a dirtied and lifeless facsimile of the Pets.com sock puppet, lands at the chimp’s feet.
Having surveyed the devastation that is the dot.com industry, Brooks is overwhelmed with sadness. We see, in close-up, two tears slowly rolling down his face, which could be construed as a satire of the classic moment in "Crying Indian," when Cody weeps in response to a country defaced by pollution. The spot concludes with "E* Trade. Invest wisely."
Gray said that last year’s "Monkey" was appropriate for the euphoric, free-spending atmosphere generated by the dot.com boom, while this year’s elegy to the Internet companies reflected the current climate. "E*Trade always wants to be timely and on top of things," noted Gray. "So, basically, this spot was just an observation of the condition of the market now. … a lot of dot.coms are now out of business. The fact that there were only three dot.com companies advertising on the Super Bowl made it perfect timing."
One of the most difficult aspects of the production was finding dot.com names that weren’t already taken. "A lot of the dot.coms that went out of business were just way too specific, and that was partly their downfall," observed Yost. "We tried to keep the humor, along with pointing out that there was a definite problem with their business plans—thus the ‘Invest Wisely.’ "
The agency is reluctant to acknowledge that the idea of "Monkey II" was to spoof "Crying Indian." (Gray’s answer to the query was, "I’ve heard that.") Buckley added, however, that since several generations have come along since 1971, the agency constructed the spot to work on its own. The commercial’s humor also couldn’t rely on last year’s E*Trade spot, because not everyone saw last year’s Super Bowl. Crucial to an understanding of the ad was viewers’ recognition of the Pets.com sock puppet and what it represented.
Having decided where the spot should end up, it became a matter of working the build-up to that point, recalled Buckley, who shot the ad over two days, in an industrial park in Valencia, Calif. "We wanted existing, working buildings and just laid down fields of blown-out, burnt-out stuff … and put up plywood [for the building facades]. The "Le Socks" building was constructed from scratch and smashed with a real wrecking ball. "Normally a wrecking ball hits in, and I wanted it to hit out, because you needed to get the idea that the puppet got kicked out. It was a one-shot deal that, thankfully, worked out," Buckley said.
For all the spot’s funniness, there is a bittersweet element given the many now-jobless former dot.com workers. "What I really love about it is that it’s both sad and funny at the same time," concluded Buckley. "When we did the tear thing, it was amazing because—all of a sudden—it was very sad. Seeing this chimp cry, it was kind of emotional."
