With their first collaboration, copywriter Tim Gillingham and art director Bobby Appleby of Fallon, Minneapolis, have shown they can create clever comedy for their clients. In fact, the spots in the “Thank You” campaign for client Citi–“Wizard,” “Mountain,” “Dressing Up,” “Runner,” “Desk” and “Disposal”–are actually hilarious. Each illustrates how the Citi credit card rewards program is more generous than those of the competition.
The concept behind the package arose from research the agency conducted on credit card reward programs. “The first thing we did was look — to see what other rewards programs were doing,” explains Gillingham. “We noticed that on a lot of other rewards programs–with various asterisks and disclaimers–it ended up taking you actually a little bit longer to amass the amount of points needed to get a reward, whereas Citi was a little quicker to give those rewards.
“I think once we discovered that particular kernel,” he continues, “we started working on that. And, as I remember, Bobby actually just had the idea of, ‘What about a guy literally not riding his mountain bike because he doesn’t have his reward yet?’ ” The resulting spot was “Mountain,” which featured two guys on bikes going down hill, while a third man pretends to ride a mountain bike–seems he had to wait longer than expected to cash in his points for a bike. When the ridiculous commercial ends, a voiceover asks, “Tired of waiting for your reward? With Thank You from Citi you get great rewards that are easy to earn, easy to redeem. That’s a card you can count on.”
As the two discussed the package, Gillingham credited Appleby with concepting “Mountain,” while Appleby credits Gillingham. From the credit they give one another for the spot, their camaraderie and respect for one another are apparent. Though not formally a team–they sometimes work separately–Gillingham and Appleby work well together when the occasion arises.
With a sound idea in place, Gillingham says it was easy to come up with dozens of scenarios. They turned to Craig Gillespie of bicoastal/international MJZ to direct “Mountain,” “Runner” and “Dressing Up.” For, “Wizard”–which broke in late August–“Disposal” and “Desk,” the former directing team of Kuntz & Maguire, also of MJZ, stepped behind the camera. (Tom Kuntz is still with MJZ, while Mike Maguire joined Goodby, Silverstein & Partners as an associate creative director.)
In “Dressing Up,” a man seems to put on every piece of clothing he will need for a trip he is taking because he doesn’t have a suitcase to pack them in, while “Disposal” shows a woman making do without a blender. The latter spot begins with the woman putting beautiful, fresh fruit in her garbage disposal and turning it on. Then, as the liquid mixture rises to the bottom of her sink, she ladles out the smoothie into a garnished glass and serves it to her husband.
“Runner” takes the action outside. A woman standing in front of her house nods to a less than enthusiastic man, presumably her husband, who is sitting in a car in the driveway. Once she signals him, he turns on the stereo, which is playing an upbeat Spice Girls track, and both are off–down the street, onto lawns and through parks. She doesn’t have an iPod so her companion must provide the music for her jog.
HOUSE OF CREATIVITY
Appleby has been with Fallon for nine years, ever since he graduated from Miami Ad School, Miami Beach. He hoped to work somewhere warm, but laughingly related that he ended up “in the coldest place in the freakin’ world.” Since joining the shop, he has created for clients like Miller Lite and Archipelago. He is currently working on a campaign for the Islands of the Bahamas; perhaps a warm respite is in his future. Gillingham joined Fallon 18 months ago after six years at Arnold Worldwide, Boston, where he worked on Volkswagen. His reason for coming to his new roost was simple: “When Fallon calls, you generally go,” he states, referring to the shop’s superb creative reputation.
Indeed, both Gillingham and Appleby cite that creative reputation and the quality of work coming out of the agency–along with the people there–as reasons they made their moves to the Midwest. “The people at Fallon are amongst the best I have ever worked with socially as well as professionally,” notes Gillingham.
Though the duo is not working on anything together right now–except for getting their golf scores below 80, Gillingham jokes–though they do hope to collaborate in the future. “You don’t often find, or it’s pretty rare to find, someone that you click with creatively,” says Gillingham. “Bobby and I don’t have that many disagreements and we both seem to be on the same page with what we work on, and we get on well outside of the office so that is a huge help. When other projects come up, we volunteer ourselves as a team.”
It is evident that their senses of humor are in sync, but Gillingham said of things to come: “It would be nice to do something which isn’t comedic as well.”
