In this Charter Communications/Spectrum Cable spot from Brooklyn, NY-based agency Something Different, we’re presented with a slice of life featuring, paradoxically, various demons, monsters and villains (including the black-cloaked merchant of Death) who are fellow train commuters. They seem like regular Joes as they compare notes, discuss mundane aspects of life, and in the process bemoan the nasty practices of their telecommunications providers. In other words, Death is not a good guy–but even he’s shocked and dismayed by the kind of stuff that some satellite and phone companies pull on their customers.
“We all just laughed at the idea of these evil people thinking someone else was horrible” says Something Different chief creative Tommy Henvey, “and it gave us a way to make our point that felt a little more unusual.”
David Shane of O Positive directed “Train” as well as the three other spots in the campaign.
Credits
Client Charter Communications/Spectrum Agency Something Different, Brooklyn, NY Tommy Henvey, chief creative; Patti McConnell, managing partner/executive producer; Richard Ryan, group creative director; Garrett Crabb, sr. producer; Christine Dodd, marketing director; Jamie Eisman, production coordinator. Production O Positive David Shane, director; Ralph Laucella, Marc Grill, exec producers; Ken Licata, producer; Marc Laliberte-Else, DP; Dan Ouellete, production designer. Editorial Crew Cuts Jake Jacobsen, partner/editor; Jake Trill, assistant editor; Sara Arnold, producer; Stephanie Norris, post EFX producer. Music JSM Music Joel Simon, chief creative officer/composer; Seamus Kilmartin, composer; Jeff Fiorello, exec producer.
Tonal, the strength training system combining revolutionary digital weight technology with personalized, AI-powered coaching, has introduced its new brand platform, “Power Progress,” and advertising campaign developed in partnership with Quality Experience (QX), the creative independent agency founded by Ari Weiss.
Directed by Aube Perrie of Pulse Films (UKMVA Director of the Year 2023 & 2024, UKMVA Best New Director 2021 and Webby’s Best Music Video 2022) with visual effects from The Mill NY, this brand film contrasts how the heavy chains of the past still shape how we work out today, with Tonal representing the future of fitness.
In addition to the brand film, the campaign includes cutdowns ranging from 90 seconds to 15 seconds, with even the shortest spot clearly connecting the old and the new. French director Perrie’s body of work includes music videos for Harry Styles, Megan Thee Stallion, and RM’s “LOST!”
“Sports marketing has had a long history of breakthrough advertising,” said QX creative chairman Weiss. “We wanted to launch with an idea as disruptive as the product itself. Not an easy bar to live up to. Like any great idea the insight is dead simple but the execution is unexpected and riveting. Great sports marketing doesn’t happen without great sports marketers and the team at Tonal shared our ambition to make the marketing as disruptive as the product.”
