- Product/Brand - Mini
- Spot - Chain Reaction
- Song Title - Post Horn Gallop
- Composer - Koenig
- Publisher - A&G Songs
- Artist - David Morris
- Master Rights - A&G Sync
- Music Supervisor - Jesper Gadeberg / Music Stylist
- Ad Agency - BBDO Dusseldorf
- Creative - Myles Lord / Heimat
- Film Company - Stink
- Film Director - Pleix
- Post Production - Digital District
- Air Date - February 28 2014
Since BMW reinvigorated the marque back in 2001, the once iconic Mini has regained its status as the small car for trendsetting city drivers all over the world. The fact that it is now manufactured entirely in Austria clearly makes no difference to a new global generation of customers too young to know it was once the jewel in the crown of Britain’s motor industry in the Swinging Sixties – and probably don’t much care.
Similarly it won’t be of much concern to British viewers that the Mini Hatch’s latest Chain Reaction TV campaign was also conceived and executed in Germany – albeit with Stink TV’s French directing collective, the seven man Pleix, standing behind the camera and then supervising the vast amount of digital trickery required to make it look like well over a hundred cars really did fall like dominoes throughout the film.
However it may interest UK sync sector professionals to learn that agency BBDO Dusseldorf and Danish supervisors Music Stylist may have fielded at least that many pitches, and possibly considerably more, during the hunt to find the perfect soundtrack to accompany this ingenious, eye-catching spot.
“I think they really went round the houses to get this one absolutely right,” says Roy Lidstone-Jackson, managing director of leading London bespoke and custom music producers A&G Syncs which ended up securing the Chain Reaction licence.
“I’ve lost track of exactly how many times were invited to send suggestions in over the course of many weeks - but each time the brief was different,” he continues. “Eventually they asked us to follow our own instincts and that’s when the gloves came off.”
A&G Syncs has an enviable reputation for coming up with off-the-wall syncs. Regular visitors to www.adbreakanthems.com will remember its IKEA Playing With My Friends spot, featuring giant soft toys and an intriguing re-arrangement of a BB King and Robert Cray blues by Welsh band Masters In France. As was Run by One Little Indian’s indie rock act Kill It Kid which drove Samsung Smart TV’s Mad Max-like Charge film last summer.
This time A&G surpassed itself with Post Horn Gallop, a mid-19th Century piece written for cornet and orchestra by German composer Hermann Koenig. Based on the sound of the Post Horn which speeding mail coach drivers would blow to clear the road ahead of any slow moving traffic, it has since become a great favourite with brass bands in Britain as well as on the continent.
But the version of this catchy, polka-rythmed tune as used in the Mini ad is not played on any kind of musical instrument, brass or otherwise. Instead it’s performed by former World Whistling Champion and 70 year old Grand Master David Morris from Saddleworth in Yorkshire.
Morris has been a prominent figure in musical circles in the North of England since he began playing the cornet in his teens. But it’s only been in the last 10 or so years that he has turned what was a party trick into a moneymaking venture, making critically acclaimed concert appearances all over the world, releasing three albums on his own label through iTunes and, more recently, agreeing a deal with A&G to represent his own recordings to the sync community.
Earlier this year Morris’ terrifically tuneful and nuanced performance was to be heard on Anne Dudley’s Local Banking For Britain soundtrack to a TSB cartoon spot. But even that pales into insignificance beside the breath control needed to keep on top of a breakneck Post Horn Gallop, which can be found on his first CD Whistle Down The Wind.
And to think that the Mini people were originally looking for something electronic! How boring would that have been?
