The term "CD changer" takes on a whole new meaning in this Varta batteries spot directed by Patrik Forsberg of Les Télécréateurs, Paris, for agency Hemisphere Droit in Clichy, France.
The commercial opens on a young woman wearing headphones and rocking out to the music playing on her compact disc player. She jumps up and down on a bed to the tune "Don’t Stop, Keep On Coming." We later see her high-energy gyrating in the living room and then the kitchen. She is totally immersed in the music, dancing and moving her lips to the song.
Suddenly the music stops cold. The woman doesn’t skip a beat, however, quickly pulling the batteries out from the back of the CD player. At first blush, the assumption is she’s going to discard the batteries and replace them. She steps down on the lever of a flip-top garbage can. But from the perspective of looking up from inside that trash can, we instead see her smile and throw away the CD player, presumably sans the compact disc.
The young music lover opens up a nearby kitchen cupboard. The shelves are home to a stack of CD players, each in its original box. She grabs a new CD player, installs the old Varta batteries and she’s moving and grooving to the music yet again.
A tagline (translated from French into English) reads, "Keep on movin’. Varta."
Sylvaine Mella executive produced for Les Télécréateurs. The spot was shot on location in Stockholm by DP Mats Axby.
The Hemisphere Droit creative team consisted of creative director Frank Tapiro, art director Loic le Guillou, copywriter Fabien Guy and producer Lalia Legand.
Several artists from Home Digital Pictures, Paris, played key roles: editor Linda Attab Ville, online editor Vincent Heine, colorist Damien Van Der Cruyssen, audio mixer/engineer Sebastian Ariaux and sound designer Laurent Bahy. The music, composed by the artist Whitey, was licensed from Universal.
The spot—a :30 with a :20 lift—debuted in France this summer. Plans call for the ad, titled "Keep On Movin’ Varta," to later be shown throughout Europe. This is the first TV work for Varta in some 10 years. Adding further to the creative challenge was the competitive product category—Varta’s two prime direct rivals on the battery market are high-profile category leaders Energizer and Duracell. To make a major impact, the concept needed an unconventional twist—in this case, the electronic equipment is disposable, but not the batteries that power it.
Heimisphere Droit was chosen to handle the re-launch campaign for Varta after the agency’s pitch beat out such other ad shops as Grey, Dusseldorf, and McCann-Erickson, Hamburg, both in Germany.
