The Guardian ‘Three little pigs’
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I like the idea, and it’s difficult to fault the quality of the execution, but something about this leaves me less than engaged.
Maybe it feels a bit overly sensationalised for my perception of the Guardian brand.
All the action movie music and supercool shots of cops and crime scenes made it feel like they were giving an already excellent product the kind of leg up normally found on an episode of CSI: Miami.
For me, that’s not The Guardian.
i loved it. maybe that’s not the guardian, yet.
Like it.
Did the creative team forget this is a British paper?
Why is it all shot in the States? With British Actors/VOs?
That’s a lot of money to spend on something a bit ordinary.
Still, if our fool clients give us that kind of cash, we’d spend it too.
It’s the best ad the Daily Mail have never made.
I really quite like it.
I think it’s one of the best ads to come out of London in a long time. Although, maybe that says more about the state of the London ad scene these days.
Not exactly ‘Points of View’ (well, it is in some ways) but I liked its ambition. I saw it on telly last night and it stood out. I am aware that isn’t a major achievement, but still. It just isn’t gold is it. More a highly burnished bronze. At least there’s a bit of drama there and the wolf ‘puff simulation’ is most definitely a highlight.
I am guessing the Twitter feeds are by the creatives…
The Guardian’s editorial point-of view makes it different from every other UK ‘paper. But that’s been totally ignored in favour of a beautiful 2 minute film about knee-jerk twitter comments and hastily written headlines which you can read on your iPad. Therefore, it has no personality whatsoever. Could have been for any newspaper that allows comments and has a digital offering (so that’s just about any of them).
It’s a good idea in search of a good point which is why I can’t make up my mind if I like it.
I’d like to have done it so I guess I do.
ORH: I think that’s what I was struggling to put my finger on: in what way does this mess of coverage about a non-story reflect the excellent work the Guardian does, as opposed to the way in which any old paper covers these stories?
Fucking Great. Its bang on for the Guardian. Very Charlie Brooker. Totally captures the way modern news works with news and social media feeding each other.
Makes all the other newspapers feel really outdated. Stuck in a hard copy format.
Its time the Guardian ditched its beardy liberal crouch end persona.
it’s trying to be cool without really ever getting off the ground. focusing on the the three little pigs doesn’t help.
this spot urgently needs some Kenny Powers.
Mm, if only the Guardian had broken a major news story in the last couple of years…
What a catty little town of haters London is turning into. This ad is going to clean up at every major award show in the next year. Nitpick all you want, but 99% of you would put that ad first on your reel in a heartbeat.
I like it – Modern, global, digital media. The execution is a little bit advertising-ish 🙂
Ben: it doesn’t – in any way.
JA: have you read the Guardian lately?
And what’s more, this:
http://youtu.be/M3bfO1rE7Yg
dramatises the proposition more clearly, and in just 30 seconds.
Doesn’t feel clever enough.
JA – this ad does everything you say and is wrong for those reasons. It takes a non story and stretches it through all the different channels until there is no truth or insight.
t – the Guardian played a major part in uncovering the phone hacking scandal which is quite a big story.
I’m from the States–who is the agency for the Guardian. I liked the ad. Not as much as the famous one from decades ago–but I liked it.
JA – you’ve been owned by the comments in repsonse to your post. P.S I love Crouch End.
I think it is a great portrayal of how shallow and quick to judge people have become as they ping pong on issues based on the latest post, tweet or comment to pass before their eyes. To me, it says the Guardian just panders to every point of view. And as we all know, a point in every direction is the same as no point at all (Oblio).
surprised at the negativity. this is a very good ad and will win a lot of metal. everyone here would have this proudly on their reel.
For the record, I’d put it front and centre on my ‘reel’ (not that I’d have ANY inclination to show my ‘reel’ around these days) because if I were looking for a job I think that most London CDs would be more inclined to hire the person who did one of the most talked-about ads of the year so far. I also imagine they think it’s pretty good (as do I).
But, dear reader, we are still in the land of the Grey Rainbow. This ad is fine. Ten years ago it would have scraped a Bronze. Five years ago a Silver. Next year it’ll win a Gold, but that’s nothing to do with its overall quality. It’s all down to the paucity of good work out there.
Name five great ads from the last twelve months. Twenty-four months? Thirty-six months? This is getting buzz because it’s a drop of water in a desert, not because it’s a shining palace of brilliance, destined to take its place in the pantheon of enduring classics.
The ‘would you have it on your reel?’ test is ringing more and more hollow because there can’t be anyone who has been working in London in the last few years with a solid reel of fuck-off ads created in that time.
Come one, come all. Name me one person or team who can claim that.
All I can hear is tumbleweed.
In the last 3 years.
Old Spice
Write the Future
Carousel
(I’m not just naming Grand Prix winners at Cannes – well I am, but in these instances, Cannes got it right).
Adidas – All In
Puma – After Hours
I can think of loads more ads that I love, but may not be as acclaimed as the ones above.
While pretty much everyone agrees that the standard has slipped, I still think we are exaggerating it a bit. I remember when Sony Paint came out. I judged it against Balls, and said – yeah, but it’s not as good as the last one. Then Play Doh came out, and I said the same thing, realising then, that Paint was really great. And I look at Play Doh now and think it’s fucking amazing. I’m not trying to put forward some kind of Sony case study – but we have a tendency to look at the past through rose coloured specs in every aspect of life. It’s precisely the reason that nostalgia advertising has been so strong during the recession.
Right at the moment, the Guardian ad is really good. So was John Lewis Xmas, I loved T-Mobile, Thomson, VO5, Walls, Carphone Warehouse, Audi (x2), Lurpak, Honda, Doritos (x2), Match.com, KFC and I think there are plenty more besides. Unless you are talking about Old Spice or Write the Future, there are very few ads I’ve ever seen and said ‘fuck me that’s amazing’. They need time to mature. Or maybe that’s just me. I just think that things aren’t that bad.
OK, to be fair you’ve taken the whole world there. I was talking more about the UK, but point taken: Carousel and Write the Future (half Dutch) are great.
But overall I’d say you’ve just backed me up. There’s a lot of ‘good’ in that list but very little great. If you have to list Lurpak, Thomson and Audi (all fine ads) then yes: things aren’t *that* bad, but they’re not that good either.
And that’s fine. No problem. The world will keep turning.
The problem comes when we start talking up the good as great, because it means we’re going in the wrong direction.
I’m not having a gratuitous pop, I’m just pointing out that ads are not as good as they have been in the recent past. What will change that? Accepting the situation as a fact and feeling uncomfortable enough about it to improve things; feeling like this industry could and should do better.
Complacency is the enemy of greatness, so is the celebration of the pretty good.
George, you just graduated didn’t you?
it’s very well executed and all that stuff, so hat’s off for that. but the core of the idea is so safe and unprovocative that it pales with the old Point of View commercial. and it feels like it’s trying to be funny. the guardian brand is deeper than this. the phone hacking scandal would have been more interesting material.
but it’s a very promising start from BBH. and the estates of the three little pigs could probably use the money.
Given the clients on this they did pretty well.
I personally don’t like the way that it privileges all the pointless guff that punters parp out onto the internet. But that’s modern media for you.
Also, why aren’t the pigs had up for murder, rather than just insurance fraud?
@Mumble – no I failed to graduate, but repeating the course next year. Wish me luck.
Its pretty interesting isn’t it? And ambitious. It made me think ‘What the F**k is this?’ when i first watched it, which a good ad always should.
Its good TV – the whole thing left me a bit cold though which is just my humble opinioni. I’d loved to have made it though. Espesh as i’d get to play a little piggy and snort and shit.
Ciao.
it’s damn entertaining, but it is a very tabloid-y murder story. which piggy was sleeping with the wolf’s sister…
are you fucking kidding me with this standards have slipped bullshit.
if cog came out today. this minute. one of you would put up a post about it being average and ripped off.
it used to be that the first time you saw an ad was on the jury. in the book. or maybe, just maybe on TV.
now we see the superbowl ads before the big show and already have a view on whether or not it was ripped off because we’ve googled and youtubed the fuck out of it.
just fucking enjoy yourselves. please.
G-L: there were plenty of complaints about Cog being a rip off at the time. However, I think the dissenting voices were drowned out by those acknowledging its status as a classic.
But that aside, I’m not talking about rip-offs. That ‘problem’ seems to have quietened down a hell of a lot since John Lewis-gate (thank God).
UK ads are worse. Consumers agree. D&AD agrees. The creatives who have been leaving the country in far greater numbers than ever before also agree.
I think we’re all capable of enjoying ourselves. We just don’t do it by watching the ads this country has been producing lately.
Check out this spoof version of it for The Sun: http://youtu.be/gFsGQOPiiBk
Why?
I couldn’t figure out why they would spend all this money on a film. An interesting and well executed film, but an expensive film at the end of the day.
The BBH planner on the BBH Labs blog says it is about attracting new readers. That makes sense. Reading between the lines of a lot of the negative comment you can tell that the converted are not enjoying being preached to. But the official line is that the ad is not for them.
I also thought it might be some kind of totem pole exercise. Expensively produced and expensively placed in the public domain, but primarily a statement of internal intent.
I’m still not convinced that there is a satisfactory answer to the question why.