Remember the makeshift phones that kids made out of string and empty cans? Well childhood comes back to life in a Progresso campaign, except it’s adults talking to one another, specifically on the “hotline” to the Progresso Soup headquarters/kitchen.
In this spot, a Progresso chef is seen in the kitchen. We then hear a woman say, “ring, ring.” He grabs a Progresso can hanging from the ceiling and answers it, beginning a conversation with the woman.
“This guy in the office just asked me to marry him,” she says as we see her in her workspace.
“Congratulations,” replies the chef.
She then clarifies that she wasn’t actually proposed to but the male co-worker gave her a bowl of Progresso’s Italian Wedding soup. We see the bowl of delicious looking soup on her desk.
The chef points out that the soup is his reduced sodium recipe.
She interprets that to mean that her would-be groom “wants me to live in his arms forever.”
The woman then holds her “phone” can to her heart, enabling the chef to hear it beating.
“Sounds like a girl in love,” he says.
The woman, continuing her trip to fantasy land, asks, “Want to hear my baby names?”
The chef responds in the affirmative, noting that he has “a few minutes.”
As she starts to rattle off names, he leaves the “phone” hanging, going off to prepare some more soup.
A voiceover relates, “Progresso. You gotta taste the soup.”
Jim Jenkins of O Positive directed the three spots in the campaign for Saatchi & Saatchi New York. Tabletop work was directed by Michael Schrom of Schrom & Co.
The Saatchi team included executive creative director Gerry Graf, creative directors Melinda Kanipe and Mandy Hoveyda, writer Jessica Coulter, art director Matt Sorrell and executive producer Jerry Boyle.
Bob Gantz was the DP. Editors were Chris Franklin and Miky Wolf of Big Sky Edit.
Ron Cicero and Bo Clancey Launch Production House 34North
Executive producers Ron Cicero and Bo Clancey have teamed to launch 34North. The shop opens with a roster which includes accomplished directors Jan Wentz, Ben Nakamura Whitehouse, David Edwards and Mario Feil, as well as such up-and-coming filmmakers as Glenn Stewart and Chris Fowles. Nakamura Whitehouse, Edwards, Feil and Fowles come over from CoMPANY Films, the production company for which Cicero served as an EP for the past nearly five years. Director Wentz had most recently been with production house Skunk while Stewart now gains his first U.S. representation. EP Clancey was freelance producing prior to the formation of 34North. He and Cicero have known each other for some 25 years, recently reconnecting on a job directed by Fowles. Cicero said that he and Clancey “want to keep a highly focused roster where talent management can be one on one--where we all share in the directors’ success together.” Clancey also brings an agency pedigree to the new venture. “I started at Campbell Ewald in accounts, no less,” said Clancey. “I saw firsthand how much work agencies put in before we even see a script. You have to respect that investment. These agency experiences really shaped my approach to production--it’s about empathy, listening between the lines, and ultimately making the process seamless.” 34North represents a meeting point--both literally and creatively. Named after the latitude of Malibu, Calif., where the idea for the company was born, it also embraces the power of storytelling. “34North118West was the first GPS-enabled narrative,” Cicero explained. “That blend of art and technology, to captivate an audience, mirrors what we do here--create compelling work, with talented people, harnessing state-of-the-art... Read More