Advertising has been chipping away at the line between art and commerce for years. In an effort to reach an increasingly fragmented audience, agencies and advertisers are turning to advertiser-supported content, or advertainment, in which an advertiser sponsors filmmaking, without a hard sell of the particular product.
Advertainment is one example of how concepts and genres—like technology—continue to develop rapidly in the ad world. Agency producers, in turn, must continually adapt in this highly mutable environment. For instance, producers who have spent their careers crafting :30 and :60 spots, suddenly find themselves producing short films and Web-based content that don’t specifically mention the products they promote.
Perhaps one of the highest-profile advertiser-supported content projects is "The Hire," a series of short, Web-based films from BMW out of Fallon Minneapolis. The shorts, viewed at BMWfilms.com, were helmed by A-list feature directors and produced by bicoastal Anonymous Content, with director David Fincher exec producing. (The agency and automaker are set to unveil a second series of films, this time with bicoastal RSA USA handling production duties.) Other recent examples include "The Secret Tournament," a three-minute ad for Nike out of Wieden+Kennedy (W+K), Amsterdam, directed by feature helmer Terry Gilliam (Brazil, 12 Monkeys), with production out of bicoastal/international @radical. media. Agency TBWA/Chiat/Day, Los Angeles produced a short film, Master of the Sixth Speed, done in Japanimé-style animation, to promote the limited edition Nissan Sentra SE-R Spec V. The car is intended to appeal to the so-called "tuner crowd," auto enthusiasts with souped-up cars and great sound systems; to that end, the film was released on a CD-ROM available in automotive, hip-hop and other urban magazines.
Additionally, MVBMS Euro RSCG, New York, teamed with convergent media company Cylo, New York, to create an interactive Volvo campaign that ran during the last two NCAA basketball tournaments. The package included traditional commercials, as well as interactive television, Internet, wireless technology and e-mail components. Showboy, a feature that recently screened at the Los Angeles Film Festival, also showcases the potential of advertainment. The film, produced by Squeak Pictures, Los Angeles, and co-directed by Lindy Heymann and Christian Taylor, received support from select Las Vegas casinos and hotels Another recent development in the advertainment arena causing a great deal of buzz is the formation of Brief Original Broadcasts (BOB), a planned digital TV network devoted to independently produced short-form programs. BOB has secured a multi-year, multi-million dollar sponsorship commitment from Anheuser-Busch (7/26, p. 1).
Below is a look at how agency producers on a few of these advertainment pieces helped create the next wave in advertising.
Hire Calling
BMW’s "The Hire" has garnered considerable attention both inside and outside of the industry. The film series stars a driver-for-hire (Croupier’s Clive Owen) who lands a variety of adventurous jobs. The five shorts, all helmed by feature filmmakers, vary considerably in tone. The late John Frankenheimer’s Ambush is a pure car-chase thriller, while Guy Ritchie’s Star features an arrogant celebrity (Madonna) who gets her comeuppance when she is given a terrifying ride. Wong Kar-Wai’s The Follow, in which the driver tails a movie star’s wife, is imbued with wistful romanticism. The Follow, directed by Ang Lee, finds the hero defending a Buddha-like child from various villains, and Alejandro González Iñárritu’s grim Powder Keg details a wounded photojournalist’s last ride.
Going into the project, Fallon knew that potential BMW buyers generally spend more time on their computers than they do watching television. "Ninety-percent of the BMW demographic lives on their computers," says Mark Sitley, Fallon’s head of production for both the Minneapolis and New York offices of the ad shop. "They’re affluent, they’re highly professional, and they’re busy."
"The Hire" doesn’t "impose on [the audience] the way conventional advertising does," says Sitley, who also points out that advertainment must be substantial to get through to viewers/users.
In order to supervise the BMW project, Fallon producers had to become familiar with technology that they usually wouldn’t deal with in conventional spotmaking. "Everyone had to learn the technical complexities on the back end—programming for DVD and interactive media," notes Sitley. "That’s one practical skillset we’ve all been forced to learn.
"The greater skillset is a sense of leadership and diplomacy," he continues. "You don’t have to know everything. You have to respect people from many different domains, and know enough to appreciate their points of view and incorporate them into what it is you’re recommending as the lead image, which will still be broadcast TV. That will always be there."
A second series of BMW shorts, this time produced by RSA USA, is in the works. Famed action director John Woo (Windtalker) recently wrapped one film, and Tony Scott (Spy Game), who directs spots via RSA USA, is currently shooting another. Newcomer Joe Carnahan, who directed Narc, which appeared at the Sundance Film Festival, is also helming a short for the project.
Mastering Nissan
The aforementioned Nissan project, Master of the Sixth Speed was created by artisans at Rhythm & Hues Studios, Los Angeles, Vinton Studios, Portland, Ore., and Celluloid Studios, which was is now located in Portland, having been acquired by Vinton. (Prior to closing, MTV Commercials worked on the preliminary stages of the production.)
Rob Schwartz, executive creative director at TBWA/Chiat/Day, initiated the film. "He saw a unique opportunity that was particular to the Nissan SE-R because of the demographic that purchases the car," relates Debra Wittlin-Martin, the agency producer on Master of the Sixth Speed. "The SE-R hearkens back to the Nissan Skyline, which is available in Japan, but not in the U.S. Rob considered that a really good opportunity to generate a special marketing campaign and create a short film linked to the Japanese heritage, which naturally led to animé film."
The film follows its Nissan-driving hero, Shadow Agent, as he pursues the villain Viko, who has stolen a valuable CD from The Chief, the hero’s boss at Nissan research and development. Spiked grenades and robotic bats fail to stop Shadow Agent, who is piloting an SE-R, from successfully tailing Viko’s car back to the bad guy’s headquarters. Inside the structure, Shadow Agent lets loose a laser device, and then drives away as the building implodes. The ensuing destruction threatens to engulf the hero, but he shifts into high gear and speeds away to safety.
"I worked with the creatives and the production companies to make sure we could execute and animate the desired storyline in the time frame because even nine or ten months is a rushed schedule in the world of animé film production," notes Wittlin-Martin. "It’s such a labor-intensive, meticulous process."
Schwartz made Wittlin-Martin and others working on the project aware that tuners were resistant to straight-up advertising. "We worked with the concept to make sure that it showcased the car, but didn’t feel too much like an advertisement," she says.
Wittlin-Martin says that the biggest difference between working on this piece versus a traditional broadcast ad was the longer life span of the animé project. She also points out that all the essentials of spotmaking—performance, cinematography, storytelling, editorial, etc.—factored into creating the film.
She notes that adaptation is key to her job. "[TBWA/Chiat/Day] is continually looking at new media projects," she relates. "Because the agency is on the forefront of branching out into new formats, the role of the agency producer has to grow and shift to accommodate that.
"Production is continually evolving," she continues. "We’ve all had to adapt from shooting in 35 millimeter film to DV filmmaking. We’ve had to advance our knowledge on CGI and visual effects. [Working on Master of the Sixth Speed] goes hand-in-hand with that expansion."
In The Game
Nike’s "The Secret Tournament" was part of a larger W+K campaign promoting Nike’s sponsorship of the World Cup Soccer Tournament. The three-minute film, which ran on television and in movie theaters, was the centerpiece of a campaign, which included a :60 and a :30 of the original, as well as cinema, print, outdoor, poster and CD-ROM components.
Riffing on the scenario of Fight Club, directed by Fincher, "The Secret Tournament," depicts a soccer tournament: a stripped-down, amped-up version of the World Cup. Matches take place inside of a cage that’s in the bowels of a tanker ship, where world-class players compete in gladiator-like conditions. A suited, slightly menacing referee presides over the wild event, that’s accompanied by Elvis Presley’s "A Little Less Conversation," as remixed by Tom Holkenborg at J-XL, Amsterdam.
The players display their dazzling skills in games where the first goal wins. After much virtuoso footwork, a winner emerges. At ad’s end, we see the Nike swoosh, followed by an image of the losers going overboard.
Does the Nike project represent a change for the role of the agency producer? "There is no change really," says Donna Lamar, one of the agency producers on the ad; Susan Cook, also of W+K Amsterdam, was the other agency producer. "Production is production, and each project has its own peculiarities. The project just happened to be larger than most projects, so it was a challenge to assemble all of the elements and have them work together."
When asked what skills producers need today, she says, "Adaptability—not necessarily to digital technology, but to new and different ways of communicating to a consumer base who is much more savvy than we give them credit for."
