You know what’s crazy™
A good television ad.
I’m watching sports center. It’s Thanksgiving day and Sportscenter is reminding me what I all ready know. I will be watching a lot of football today and eating more than a cow with a distended stomach.
FADE OUT SPORTSCENTER
FADE IN – SCREAMING COMMERCIALS – DAY
It’s wall to wall noise.
Taco Bell is banging my head with a visual gong.
The announcer screams: “It’s triple stack Taco Bell”
I hear a gong.
ANNOUNCER: Run for the border.
Run for the toilet, I think to myself.
It’s a wall paper of who cares. It’s fast imagery and yelling announcers and easy to ignore multi media drek.
Then an ad that actually catches my attention, actually makes me look up and appreciate the written language arrives in my living room.
It is brought to me on a silver platter, held by a white glove.
The commercial is elegant and crafted of the finest ingredients of creativity and subtle sales.
It’s an ad that is written by a craftsman, a wordsmith, someone who can tell a story in 30 seconds and make me want to get drunk on their product in a historical romance kind of way.
FADE IN: DAY
A beautiful Maple tree stands alone in a field. It’s leaves are the color of autumn. The sun glistens through the branches, burning a rainbow of gold and brown and green across the screen.
ANNOUNCER: This isn’t just a maple tree.
FADE TO LOW ANGLE SWIRLING SHOT OF THE MASSIVE TRUNK.
The tree trunk is twisted and encrusted with time. It is strong and time-tested like a rock. The trunk is mighty, obdurate to the elements. As the camera pushes in I see twisted bark and what looks like the face of a thousand wood elves from a million years of existence.
Somehow the tree sparkles as if it is the fountain of all things life.
ANNOUNCER: It’s a legend. Nobody knows how old it is. Maybe just always.
MAYBE JUST ALWAYS.
That’s gold!
Someone needs to be rewarded for that line. How old is this tree? Nobody knows. MAYBE JUST ALWAYS!
3 words that decorate my brain with a powerful image of ever lasting forever.
The imagery is rich and vibrant as the camera zooms into leaves so Thanksgiving like, they seem designed by printers at Hallmark. If the Pilgrims could have a first Thanksgiving anywhere, it would have taken place under this mighty Maple.
There is a splash of dew on a leaf and a rustle of the wind through the canopy of golden brown and illuminated yellows as this 30 second masterpiece uncoils across my screen.
It’s :10 seconds in, and my mind is racing. What is this cinematic piece of business doing? What are they selling me? What do they want me to buy to do to feel?
ANNOUNCER: It’s been struck by lighting so many times mother nature has given up.
The video shows a tree struck by slow motion lightning. The zig zag of electrically pulsed energy zaps the mighty Maple, once, twice, repeatedly. It’s a montage of a tree being so bombarded by electric bolts of anger jabbing the tree in it’s heart like an Edward Allen Poe saga.
But against all odds, despite the violent fire work display, the tree replenishes itself, grows, blossoms, standing tall in this field. It is a mighty symbol of life, standing defiantly amidst a swirling cloud of anger and penetrating foreboding. The Tree is withered and dying, then suddenly, invisible, timeless, full of life.
ANNOUNCER: every night it charms the stars and the new constellations.
DAMN. Whose writing this commercial? DID I WRITE THIS? It’s 15 seconds in and I can’t imagine what this ad is for. Is it for trees? Is it for insurance? Is it for hamster cage cleaner?
The video fades to night, showing me a swirling pattern of constellations, racing around an orbit that is the tree.
The mighty Maple is the focal point of life, the steadfast forever beacon in the sky.
The constellations, billions of light years away, circle this indomitable force as if it is the home for Mother Earth.
ANNOUNCER: It’s dulled the blade of every lumber jack foolish enough to try.
The video shows cuts in the bark, and then worn out rusty axes discarded in futility.
The imagery is clear. This tree is a fortress of time impervious to all who would try and do harm against it.
ANNOUNCER: And it’s character has inspired a flavor just as original.
Finally the pay off. The moment of realization. The plot point of this 30 second movie.
What is this finely crafted ad campaign trying to sell me?
The video dissolves carefully, slowly, as a gigantic, majestic leaf falls from the wondrous tree, into an affluent night spot. The people are dressed for a celebration of humanity in black tie and upscale garb. It’s a bar bathed in a maternal golden glow illuminated by the mighty maple leaf that has delicately fallen from the tree in the scene prior.
ANNOUNCER: CROWN ROYAL MAPLE.
ANNOUNCER: WHISKY STARTED MAPLE FINISHED.
The video pushes in to a Crown Royal bottle. The bottle looks as if it was crafted by nobleman in a glass factory in an ancient European town. It is precisely carved with elegant grooves and ornate designs that make this product feel regal, as if the Queen knights each bottle before it leaves the factory.
The commercial ends with a close up; a mighty maple leaf beside a half filled glass of Crown.
The background is orange, slightly out of focus. I can see smiles and celebratory moments.
I marvel at the journey I have just taken. A powerful image of a tree impervious to the ravages of time. A Maple so mighty it is carved into a fabric of existence that begins and ends with steadfast endurance so powerful that all time and space bow down before it.
This commercial speaks to me. Not because I like Crown Royal, because trust me, I DO!
This Ad is a Hemingway novel condensed into 30 seconds. It’s a work of art that probably goes unnoticed in a sports bar or fast forwarded on a dvr.
But the next time you see the mighty maple, right after the Taco Bell vomit and the financial commercial warning me that you haven’t saved enough for your retirement, take a moment to inhale the talent it took to create this.
I did. I watched every scene. I thought about the script. I watched how the symbolism and camera angles that told this story.
There are awards for good television commercials, they are called CLIOS.
This commercial transported me somewhere. It made me not only want to drink whisky at 8am but it made me think about life and how a single tree can endure by simply standing its ground, sinking its roots, and not allowing itself to be changed because the world around it says it must.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Life’s Crazy™