- Product/Brand - O2
- Spot - Tu Go App
- Song Title - Misirlou
- Composer - Roubanis
- Publisher - Music Sales
- Artist - Dick Dale & The Del-Tones
- Master Rights Holder - Dick Dale Records
- Music Supervisor - Soho Music
- Ad Agency - VCCP
- Creative - Darren Bailes, Ben Daly, Nathaniel White, Daniel Glover-James, Elias Torres
- Film Company - Caviar
- Film Director - Keith Schofield
- Post Product - MPC
- Air Date - August 3 2013
Ever since Egyptian times, cats have been cool. But it’s only comparatively recently that agencies and brands have sought to cast our feline friends in anything other than the stock eating, sleeping, purring and playing roles required of a pet food commercial.
We reckon it all started with an AMV BBDO Sheba clip – first tracked by adbreakanthems in September 2012 – starring Desperate Housewives’ sultry siren Eva Longoria. Suddenly a cat food spot could be sexy in ways beyond Leslie Phillips’ wildest dreams.
And then there was last March’s bold attempt by a Whiskas film (commissioned again by AMV) to get inside the head and track the thought processes of a common or garden tabby which truly believes it’s a snow leopard prowling in the foothills of the Himalayas.
But neither of these flights of fancy can have prepared viewers for the O2: Be More Dog and Money Supermarket: Running With Cats campaigns which have both broken within the last six weeks.
Quite coincidentally, the creative teams at VCCP and Mother have hit upon ways of presenting our cat cousins on screen which not only raise a smile but go beyond the absurd to border on the surreal.
Call it zeitgeist if you will. But we reckon there must be something in the milk these guys put in their coffee?
VCCP has been developing the O2: Be More Dog campaign for well over 12 months. It is based on the premise that we are all too cat-like and cynical when it comes to modern mobile technology.
“What we needed was an idea so big and broad that it would effectively open customers minds to the possibility of O2 being quite a different company in the future, “ says VCCP Group Strategy Officer Sophie Maunder-Allan, who led the O2 project.
“It wasn’t just a question of promoting new products and services. What we were looking for was to create a new attitude towards the brand – probably not a brief you would think at first glance might be answered through the manifestation of the differences between cats and dogs,” she continues.
Our introduction to VCCP's rumoured £10 million Be More Dog campaign showed a particularly nonchalant and aloof ginger tom reveal his canine credentials by transforming himself into an excitable pup. And all to the sound of Flash, Freddy Mercury and Queen’s title theme to the 1981 sci-fi comic book blockbuster.
The film was made through Caviar by LA-based Keith Schofield, an award-wining pop promo director now breaking big in commercials, whose work for bands like Supergrass and brands like Virgin Mobile and Volkswagen has been described as “joyously vital” and “full of visual gags.”
It was shot in the UK and Schofield paid particular tribute to post production specialists MPC for their contribution towards the success of the project.
“Working with MPC proved to be a great experience. They were constantly looking for creative solutions, rather than dictating what could or couldn't be done. I was ecstatic about the end results. The fact that people are asking ‘how did they do that?’ is a testament to MPC's amazing skills."
The first cut was aired in July and, supported by bus shelter and newspaper ads – not forgetting an on-line frisbee game available to O2’s smartphone customers on www.bemoredog.o2.uk – went viral virtually immediately.
Within a matter of weeks it was followed by another execution of the same film but focusing on O2’s new Tu Go app - which allows subscribers to use their O2 numbers to make and receive calls and texts over WiFi from different smart devices.
The soundtrack here is the gut-wrenching, soul-stirring instrumental version of an old East European folk tune Misirlou, by Dick Dale. Styling himself as King Of The Surf Guitar, Dale and his backing band The Del-Tones did more than merely rule the roost in Southern California dancehalls in the years immediately prior to the Beatles-led British Invasion of the US in 1964. He served as an inspiration too for many of the legendary acid rock and heavy metal guitarists who were soon to blow minds on both sides of the Atlantic.
Movie buffs will also remember this epochal recording from the OST of Quentin Tarrentino’s 1994 black comedy Pulp Fiction. But in a musical genre littered with era-defining mini-masterpieces by bands like The Ventures, The Chantays and The Surfaris, what was it that put Dick Dale’s signature tune ahead of the curl?
“Music is key to O2's advertising and we take time to select the right track for all our spots,” says VCCP copywriter Nathaniel White. “Yes, we looked at lots of surf guitar including some great Japanese stuff. But we ultimately went with Misirlou because surf guitar is a simple genre where true mastery of technique really shines through - and Dick Dale is the master.”
Despite plans to launch a range of other O2 services in the run up to the introduction of 4G, VCCP refuses to be drawn on how many other versions of Schofield’s film are in the pipeline. Nor indeed how many music tracks supervisor Soho Music has helped them license.
“Let’s say just say that there is more exciting stuff to come and that we think Be More Dog is a campaign that really has legs. Is that one pun too many?”
Maybe it is. But who’s counting?
