Carlton Draught: Big Ad
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The "Big Ad" is a television advertisement for Carlton Draught pale lager. It was created by George Patterson and Partners (Young & Rubicam) of Melbourne, Australia. The agency used viral marketing techniques to promote the advertisement before it was broadcast on television. The ad premiered on Australian television on 7 August 2005.
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[edit] Awards
The advertisement has won more than 30 awards globally, including recognition at the 53rd Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival in 2006 with a prestigious Gold Lion award.[1][2]
[edit] Content
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Two armies, one dressed in maroon, the other in yellow, march toward one another singing the advertisement's lyrics to the melody of "O Fortuna" from Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. A heroic figure on horseback leads charge. Viewed from the air, the armies form a glass of Carlton Draught and a human body. The glass is then lifted to the mouth, and the audience sees the "beer"—rushing, ecstatically leaping, yellow-clad soldiers—flowing into the body's stomach.
The ad parodies the visual style of battle sequences in such films Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, with sweeping, larger-than-life panoramas of rugged mountain terrain, and also the grandiose commercials pioneered by the likes of Qantas and British Airways.
[edit] Viral marketing
The company decided to use a viral campaign because of the distracting environment in which television is viewed and the fragmented audiences of traditional media. (Lee, 2005, p. 29) Two weeks prior to being broadcast on television, the advertisement was streamed on the Internet from a dedicated website. Although costly, streaming permitted higher quality video than other formats, such as MPEG. (Sophocleous and Cubito, 2005, p. 6) Within 24 hours after release, the "Big Ad" had been downloaded 162,000 times (Frilingos, 2005, p. 8). Within two weeks, it had been seen by over one million viewers in 132 countries (Lees, 2005). This campaign was widely covered in the press. The viral release of the "Big Ad" was so successful that the company reduced its television media budget so as not to overexpose the advertisement. (Lee, 2005, p. 29)
[edit] Technical acknowledgements
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Agency: George Patterson and Partners, Melbourne
- Creative Director: James McGrath
- Art Director: Grant Rutherford
- Writer: Ant Keogh
- Producer: Pip Heming
- Group Communications Director: Paul McMillann
Production: Plaza Films
- Director: Paul Middleditch
- Executive Producer: Peter Masterton
- DOP: Andrew Lesnie (Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring)
Post- Production: Animal Logic (The Matrix)
- VFX Supervisor: Andrew Jackson
- Senior Compositor: Angus Wilson
- VFX Producer: Caroline Renshaw
- Editor: Peter Whitmore - Winning Post Productions
- Music: Cezary Skubiszewski
- Location: Queenstown, New Zealand
- Cast: 300 locals (consisted mainly of backpackers)
To create large (tens of thousands of people) crowds for the ad MASSIVE software with semi-independent AI actors from Weta Digital was used.
[edit] References
- ^ Carlton Draught - Superbrands Australia
- ^ Big Ad picks up Gold Lion at the 2006 Cannes Advertising Awards - Australian Screen Editors Guild - News, 28 June 2006
[edit] Other references
- Canning, S. (2005) "Business Big Shot", The Australian: Finance, 23 Jul., p.34.
- Frilingos, M. (2005) "As big as … a Carlton beer ad", The Daily Telegraph: Local, Jul. 23, pg.8.
- Lee, J. (2005) "Very big ad shows why we still call Carlton a beer", The Sydney Morning Herald: Business, 28 Jul., pg.29.
- Lees, N. (2005) "Big ad hits one millionth viewer", Adnews, 29 Jul.
- Sophocleous, A., and Cubito, A. (2005) "Clients catch the viral bug", Adnews, August 12, 2005, p.6.
