• Product/Brand - Strongbow Cider
• Spot - Bittersweet
• Song Title - Keep In The Dark
• Composer - Bagshaw, Walmsley
• Publisher - Imagem
• Artist - Temples
• Record Co - Heavenly – [PIAS]
• Music Supervision - Pitch & Sync, Leland Music
• Ad Agency - St Luke’s
• Creative - Al Young
• Film Company - Rattling Stick
• Film Director - Steve Cope
• Air Date - 1/07/14

Cider aficionados of a certain age will remember nights spent trawling the High Street in search of a decent draught of their favourite tipple. Now the fermented juice of the good old English apple is available everywhere.

And, if judged only by the number of high concept, high cost TV campaigns we’ve witnessed of late, it surely represents one of the most fiercely contested segments of the UK drinks market.

Of course, Heineken-owned Strongbow is no stranger to the commercial breaks. But this latest spot – ‘heroing’ the fruit-growing farmers of Hereford – uses split-screen technology and time-lapse photography to underline its provenance as a traditional British brand while cleverly complementing the contrasting elements inherent in the Bittersweet strapline.

Finally, to prevent the film ending up just a touch too earnest for today’s twenty-somethings, agency St Luke’s has synced it all to a slice of delightfully discordant semi-acoustic psychedelia courtesy of Temples, the Kettering-born wunderkids much touted by both Johnny Marr and Noel Gallagher since the release of their debut album Sun Structures in February this year.