All sorts of things can go wrong when you are distracted by the brilliant clarity of a Zenith digital TV set—according to "Nightclub," a new spot directed by Gerard de Thame.
The :30 was co-produced by bicoastal HSI Productions and London-based Gerard de Thame Films via Cramer-Krasselt, Chicago.
"Nightclub" opens on a sophisticated, urban nightclub, where twenty-somethings are drinking and dancing to an upbeat dance track. A young woman dances seductively in front of the entrance to the men’s restroom. The camera pans to the stylized symbol on the door, and a cool, good-looking guy in his late twenties emerges from the bathroom, strutting confidently through the crowd. A couple standing nearby checks him out, the woman’s face expressing bewilderment. The camera goes back to the guy, who is still strutting through the crowd. Another couple stares at our confident hero, the man removing his sunglasses for a better look.
The action returns to the restroom door, whence another hip and equally good-looking guy emerges. Three women, dressed in cocktail garb, glance over at him, one of them then gasping in open-mouthed distaste. The camera pans down to show that the man has—unknowingly—wet his pants. The next shot is inside the restroom, where a row of men going about their business are struck dumb by something on the wall above the urinals. This is revealed to be a Zenith 60-inch plasma display panel, showing crystal-clear footage of women who are doing synchronized swimming. A voiceover cautions, "Careful. That’s a Zenith digital TV you’re looking at." The spot closes on the synchronized swimmers, concluding with several product shots and Zenith’s "Digitize the Experience" tagline.
The agency creative team consisted of executive creative director Marshall Ross, art director Mike Lyons, copywriter Michael Herlehy and producer Pat Douglass.
Ross said that the idea of the campaign was to position Zenith products as irresistibly captivating. "The basic concept was to show what happens when people get lost in something—the world around them fades away and they lose touch with where they are at, and what they are doing. In ‘Nightclub,’ this has the obvious consequences," he pointed out.
The agency presented British director de Thame with a number of scripts based around the distraction concept and asked him to select the two he was most interested in directing. De Thame also helmed "Parachute," which shows a parachutist jumping out of an airplane and, seconds later, yanking the ripcord—only to see pants, socks and shorts fly out behind him, instead of a parachute. The spot cuts to the hangar where the parachutes are prepared and we see another man, enthralled by hula dancers on a Zenith TV set, stuffing a pack with articles of clothing, rather than a parachute.
Even though de Thame has directed comedy spots in the past, he is probably best known for his high-end visually arresting productions.
"The reason we wanted Gerard was that he wouldn’t take the spots to a goofy or slapstick level," said Ross. "We knew there was plenty of potential for that already. In fact, we were worried about that, and wanted someone to treat the commercial in a more stylized manner. There is an inherent hip-ness to Gerard’s film, and that was very important for the brand."
The agency deliberately set out to make a controversial ad. This was driven by the desire to restore Zenith’s former high profile. "Zenith, in the United States, was once a very venerable brand, but in the last ten years has dropped to complete irrelevancy. So, more important than the advertising strategy, was the business strategy, which was to put Zenith back on the radar," Ross told SHOOT.
When asked whether he was worried about the ad coming across as crass, Ross replied, "Of course we were; it is crass." But he said that de Thame added a sense of sophistication: The spot is set in a tasteful nightclub patronized by well-heeled and attractive patrons, and features details such as the elegance of the bathroom. "That was important—[having] that sense of sophistication layered with the obvious, undeniable crassness," added Ross.
Filming was done over three days in the U.K. Two days were spent capturing the scenes on the nightclub dance floor, which were set in a Japanese restaurant that de Thame selected for such interior design elements as the overhead lighting. The scenes set in the club’s restroom were filmed over a day at Shepperton Studios, Shepperton, which gave the team creative freedom to design the desired look.
HSI Productions executive producer Maddi Carlton stated that the two critical factors for de Thame were the casting and styling of the clubbers, and getting the best music. "In a way we treated it as a music video so the actors were totally in tune to the rhythm of the track," she explained, adding that they went through many options before settling for the trance-style music that ended up in the spot. A lot of time was spent on the casting of the lead guys, making sure they looked hip—but not too hip—and could pass as urban Americans, as opposed to having an obvious European style. Water was carefully poured on the actors’ pants to get the wet patches. The plasma screen was filmed on the wall of the bathroom, but the footage of the synchronized swimmers was added later in the interests of getting that extreme sharpness of picture.
Carlton said that de Thame was drawn to the script and the chance to work on a performance-based commercial. "It was a really fun concept and a little unusual for American advertising," enthused Carlton. "I think Gerard thought it would be an interesting twist; he had a lot of fun with it. The strength of the spot was in the concept and just doing a really tasteful, well designed execution."
Liz Tate, editor, Avenue, Chicago, was the creative editor on the spot and supervised the post, which was done through various Avenue companies, including Somersault and Avenue Audio. Tate pointed out that the challenge was in not giving the joke away too early. Consequently she really wrestled with peaking interest, shifting between the glances in the crowd and the guys coming out of the bathroom, to finally reveal the gag. She thought it was an entertaining spot to work on. "It’s always fun to work on something that is a bit risqué and a little ground breaking in [terms of] what you can show on TV," she told SHOOT.
Composers John Waddell and Will Parnell of Amber Music, London, worked to create a suitable dance track. According to Waddell, he and Parnell presented the agency with three different tracks inspired by different styles of club music; the team opted for the uplifting trance beat, which was created in-house at Amber. "We basically went on a tour of London clubs—in our heads. The brief was to design a club style of music, but obviously there are an awful lot of different kinds out there," noted Waddell. "It was about finding something that fitted and yet didn’t alienate too much of their target audience." Because trance music is very metronomic, most of the track was programmed except for the element with the guitars, which was created using actual guitars.
Waddell said it was a challenge to create the illusion that the guys were walking through the club in time to the music, as the music was added after the final edit. This required some manipulation of the track because, inevitably, the cut had changed by the time the music had been created. This was tricky, as dance music has a very rigid form. "The more discerning listener who knows music will notice that some very odd things are happening that wouldn’t normally happen in dance music," Waddell explained.
Ross Gregory, also of Amber Music, was the sound designer, charged with creating the background sound for the product shot sequence that concludes the spot.
Cramer-Krasselt’s Ross is still concerned that "Nightclub" will be taken off the air. To minimize potential backlash, the team selected its media placement carefully, avoiding obvious family programs.
That said, the ad is having the desired effect, according to Ross, who reported that people are definitely talking about it—an important first step in getting the Zenith name out there. "We knew that this spot would have some people saying, ‘What a bunch of dopes,’ and we also knew it would get some people saying, ‘I love it; I love that old stodgy Zenith would do something like this,’ " he concluded.
