Remakes are always crappy, depressing and unnecessary (except for the remake of Solaris, which I love).
Remember this classic?
Of course you do. It’s still cited as one of the best ads of the past decade or two, and rightly so.
Sony seems to agree, and have now bestowed upon us this too-similar-to-be-an-accident, much worse retread:
It’s funny, isn’t it? Even when it’s quite clear what the charm of Double Life is (its lack of supersized budget, its intrigue, its strange and wonderful cast of characters etc.), the people responsible for the remake have decided to jettison every single aspect of what made it good in favour of the kind of tiresome shite you’ll forget even as you’re watching it.
I’ve had many, many briefs since Double Life that have asked for a ‘Double Life’ (by that I think the client and account dudes mean that they want to have the kind of massive success they don’t have the balls to make) but never one that asked for the Double Life.
It’s a peculiar kind of laziness that again shows the client side of the industry just what we’re made of: ‘Stand on the shoulders of giants? Hmmm… That’s a bit of an ask. How about we look at what the giants did and just urinate on it while lying in a hammock?’
Sold.
Well that almost ruined a perfect Sunday. Sometimes I feel this industry is having its last breaths. And that both angers and frustrates me.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen Double Life. Jesus, it really is just fucking amazing isn’t it?
And that ‘remake’ is just… not as good.
“How about we look at what the giants did and just urinate on it while lying on a hammock?”
Great copy, Ben.
For me, this ad is symptomatic of what’s wrong with advertising right now. Nobody seems to want to credit the audience with any intelligence. ‘Second Life’ and this new spot are aimed at pretty much the same audience, surely? So have we all become much dumber in the art 10 years? Or is it just that clients have?
Another thought: the new PSVita ad is quite well written, well produced and feels pretty ‘big’ – all of which is good for what is an important product launch for Sony. And it’s from a good agency, too. But all of that pales into insignificance because Second Life exists. Even though 99% of the audience won’t remember the original ad, it’s still there – hopefully bugging the ECD, CD, creative team enough to make them wake up in cold sweats at night.
Name and shame. Who the fuck is responsible?
What have you made Ben Kay?
180 Shamesterdam.
VIsuals man.
They can now show the viewer what they should think and not leave it to their imagination.
Have you been round the Picasso exhibition at The Tate? It makes out most of British art to be a substandard copy of his work.
@6: there’s a link on the right of the blog that says ‘my advertising work’.
Or, if I’m taking your question as you have posed it grammatically, I have made nothing Ben Kay. How do make something Ben Kay? I’d have to take something that isn’t me then make it me, and that’s really hard.
WHY, GOD, WHY DID YOU LET THIS HAPPEN?!?!?!?
Fucking hellfire, that is shit. It’s for derr brain retards. It has so depressed me that I am liking the Oreo ad.
You were right Ben, I liked Moneyball. These two things are unconnected other than the key grip, Steve, did both.
Inseminate your wife? That’s creating something half-you. (You did strategy, she did execution). Then blame her for any bad bits. That aside, i read some quote on t’internet somewhere from the Playstation Brand Director stating that this is a totally different strategy to Double Life, because that was about escaping into another world and this is about escaping into a ‘social’ online gaming world. Failed to see the distinction. Shows how people can lose themselves in strategy and semantics. Double Life still kicks the ass of this soulless CGI-fest.
BRIEF TO AGENCY:
Take everything that was good about Double Life and then do the opposite.
Leave nothing to the imagination.
SHOW THE GAMES!
Cast cliched stage school cunts and give the copy brief to someone whose first language is not English, after all it lives or dies on the writing.
Basically just fuck it up a bit.
Scrap that. A lot.
I never liked double life. I thought it was pretentious, portentous and stupid. So I can ‘t get too fussed about this either way.
i thought it was a tesco advert the first time i saw it, shocked when it turned out to be serious
You will be definitely right. In it a thing is also thought very good, I support.
Hurrah! At last I got a website from where I know how to actually get useful data concerning my study and knowledge.