Beat This

Usain Bolt hardly needs any introduction anymore. The man is a superstar. When people start tattooing your face or name on their bodies, that's when you know you've really made it. Or wait, is that when you appear in crossword puzzles? Either way, Usain is well known. And fast. Faster than most. He is the only male sprint athlete to successfully defend both his 100m and 200m Gold medals in two consecutive Olympics. Impressive, I'd say. What has really worked in his favour is the big chunk of Jamaican flair that he also possesses.

People all over the world will tell you that besides entertaining them with world record-breaking performances, he's a whole lot of fun to watch too. Comfortably assuming the role of the 'jester of the track', he always has time to crack a joke or two. But it seems making fun of his rivals with his legs, is what he enjoys most of all.

No wonder then that ESPN decided to approach him and make use of his many talents. Known for their very dry, off-beat style of humour, ESPN commercials rarely fail to also entertain its loyal followers by making light of some serious situations.

This particular one with Mr Bolt is another well-rounded effort of theirs. I say well-rounded because everything complements each other very well. The casting of Usain in this particular incident is the first step in the right direction for me. Surely he is the inspiration behind their idea.

There's an insight into the working schedules of some people, in this case Usain's. Perhaps not much of a concept, although with a good enough insight, it almost seems that the insight becomes your concept and in turn that again sustains the integrity of the message.

The two guys having a casual chat at the ESPN offices set a nice tone for our hero Bolt to make his appearance. There is some really sharp camera work done by both the Focus-puller and DOP when tracking backwards and up before pulling focus to reveal the time clock at the top. Usain casually strolls away and the guys give a nice low-key performance to being amazed and envious of such a day's work. It deserves a good chuckle. 

 

'This is for Tina – I'm sorry I stabbed you.'

That was the request of a caller that phoned in to a New York radio station. Now if a request like that doesn't grab your attention, I'm not exactly sure what will. What I do know is that no matter how absurd it sounds to you and me, with that one sentence, this guy who is obviously a bit detached from standard protocol has given you and me the right insight into the medium of radio.

I'd be lying if I said that writing for radio is easy. It's not. When I read Luke Sullivan's words, 'Radio is hell. But it's a dry kind of heat' in his book, 'Hey Whipple Squeeze This', I for a moment thought the guy was just using some classic scare tactics. Turns out he's right.

The following radio ad was done by TBWA Hunt Lascaris/Johannesburg. It was a 2002 Clio – Finalist and was written by Copywriters: Avital Pinchevsky and Peter Houry for BIC Lighters.

FVO: (Afrikaans accent, dramatic) So it was mine and Frikkie's 3^rd montheversary and I wanted to cook him a special dinner and the ladies at work all told me to make a duck Flambé – that's when you set the duck on fire - (mad horse laugh) and then Frikkie arrived with some biltong for me from the garage, he's so romantic my Frikkie and I was about to light the duck but I was so excited about the biltong that I dropped the matches in the sink and they got wet.

I was in a very ugly place then because dinner could have been ruined but Frikkie said: 'Poppie, just use my Bic lighter. It lights first time every time and it's now SABS approved' and I thought to myself, what a man.

So dinner was rescued and Frikkie took the next step and asked me to be more than his cousin, but also his wife. Lucky, hey?

ANNCR: Bic Lighters. Even if nobody's home, the light will come on.

I like this ad. It's fun, entertaining, lighthearted and endearing. All in all, a memorable story. There isn't an earth shatteringly great concept in it I suppose, it has a proposition, 'BIC Lighters lights the first time every time', and a bit of an insight into Afrikaners and the way they speak, although I'm sure not all of them sound like this. For the sake of radio the character in this story was obviously exaggerated, kind of in a similar way you'll 'push' a benefit in print ads or TV commercials. The result is the same, it makes it stand out and that's exactly what you want.

While I'm busy contemplating all of this, that strange caller's request all of a sudden comes to mind again. It doesn't matter how you grab someone's attention, if you can get it and hold it with a clever concept, idea or interesting story, mate, you'll have listeners smiling all the way. All it takes is finding a story that will do that. Perhaps the power of radio is best explained with the words of Marilyn Monroe when she said: "It's not true I had nothing on, I had the radio on."

Don't Read This

Amazing things happen when people get told not to do something. Like Adam and Eve. Thousands of years ago they decided to do exactly that. They did what they were told not to. Some would reason that most of our afflictions today are a direct result of their decision to do just the opposite of what they were told. But don't believe it.

Lots of people ever since have had far better luck when doing what they were told not to do. To them it's even become their most trusted inspirational conversation kick-starter. Of course little do they realise that many of us actually think to ourselves when they do this, 'I wish you hadn't.' Acting a different way to what you are initially told is normal. Don't feel bad. It's simply your natural inborn 'reactance responder' detecting the possibility of being coerced. In situations like this, don't do anything.

The Independent won a Grand Prix award at Cannes in 1999 with their Litany commercial. I'm sure that wasn't their intention. The 'Don't give us an award for this one' part must have been edited out.

The whole commercial was shot in black and white and shows various reportage images to illustrate every point being made. The concept is to show people how they are possibly victims of being showered with what to do or not to do. The insight that gets communicated through this is, people tend to do exactly the opposite. (Got to love reverse psychology)

The 1990's were however plagued with lots of tension which inevitably lead to this era in history demanding society to question its status quo. The Gulf War, The Chechen War, The Kargil War between Pakistan and India and The Yugoslav Wars to name some of the main conflict events. Political assassinations were also at the order of the day of which the deaths of Judge Giovanni Falcone and his co-worker and friend Paolo Borsellino orchestrated by the Mafia were especially tragic, both of them losing their lives in the fight against organised crime.

With this commercial, The Independent managed to position itself as a newspaper to free thinking people, at a time when people were especially susceptible to this kind of message. 
 

The simplicity of the ad in terms of cinematography, music, voice over, and it's relevance to a specific period in time all worked well together and resulted in a very professional end result. Surely winning a Grand Prix at Cannes is testament enough.