- Product/Brand - Shredded Wheat
- Spot - Live From The Heart: Dave
- Song Title - It's Just Gotta Be That Way
- Composer - Wright
- Publisher - Rockin’ Music
- Artist - Bobby Angelle
- Master Rights - Ace
- Music Supervisor - FRUKT Fixers
- Ad Agency - McCann London
- Creatives - John Hurst, James Rooke, Kate Pozzi
- Film Company - Knucklehead
- Film Director - Finn McGough
- Post Production - MPC
- Air Date - 12/1/15
The more cynical among us may look askance whenever admen start talking about authenticity. However there can be no questioning the sincerity of Shredded Wheat’s new Live From The Heart commercial.
This small slice of reality TV focuses on the contemporary Northern Soul scene in Worcester. It was originally aimed specifically at the over 50s but has subsequently surprised many by striking a chord with their teenage children too.
“We wanted to move away from the functional properties of breakfast cereals and look at different and unusual physical activities which people in that age group are genuinely passionate about,” says Tom Wong Managing Partner at McCann London.
“We stumbled on Northern Soul because one of our writers has parents who are enthusiasts and it kind of took off from there.”
This 1970s movement, with its distinctive dress code and its regular all niters at clubs like Wigan Casino and Manchester’s Twisted Wheel, has become the stuff of legend.
But for many dyed-in-the-wool fans the music lives on and the Shredded Wheat film shows a father and ‘I’ve got the coolest dad ever’ son getting ready for their ritual Saturday night rendez-vous with the best in high energy, extremely old school R’n’B.
Nevertheless, Wong continues, McCann were conscious of “threatening the purity of the scene” and looked long and hard at finding the right track to underpin the honesty of the footage.
“Over a three month period we must have listened to at least a hundred tracks, sourced by our in-house music group FRUKT Fixers in conjunction with Ady Croasdall and Chris Lines at Ace Records. We went into the shoot with a shortlist of three and chose the best at the edit.”
In keeping with the Northern Soul ethos, that final track, It's Just Gotta Be That Way by Bobby Angelle, is a real rarity. Written and produced by Arthur Wright, one of the genre’s unsung superstars, it was recorded in 1968 and originally released on the now defunct Money label.
The fact that It’s Just Gotta Be… is also a hidden gem which is not instantly recognizable coincidentally and cleverly reinforces the Shredded Wheat message about re-discovering passions through a healthy diet.
Nice one!
