Offset The Evil "Clown Flower Time", "Lollipop Gift Parade"

This film was created by the agency Clemenger BBDO with animation by Yukfoo Animation, and was commissioned by Sega. In this video, colorful images of clowns singing and dancing are interspersed with images from the violent and disturbing video game "Condemned 2". A jingle for a couple of flash games on offsettheevil.com includes lyrics about playing the cartoonish mini games to make up for committing many virtual acts of sadism in the "Condemned 2" game. The animation company's website can be found at www.yukfoo.net, and the YouTube videos for "Clown Flower Time" and "Lollipop Gift Parade" at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcnjQeCfgjA and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDmatDhA1vA&NR=1 respectively.

I think the commercial is going for the irony factor, since it contrasts bright, colorful, and sweet imagery with extremely disturbing images from the video game it is promoting. I found this commercial to be very amusing, not only for the aforementioned irony factor, but also on the level of the extremely bright aesthetic in itself. It helped stand out what would be yet another violent video game. It's definitely one of the more creative video game ads that I have seen.

Ford Kuga "Light Painters: Reject the Ordinary"

This film was created for Ford by the agency Wunderman Italy, produced by Indiana Production Company and PIPS:lab, and directed by Tak Kuroha. It involves several people doing what is known as light painting, a technique where long exposures taken at night of moving hand held light objects around creates drawings of light in the film exposure. In this film, light images created include a turntable station out of a bench, a soda can made out of a trash can, flowers out of sidewalk poles, and a candle out of a fire hydrant. At the end of each spot, the Kuga logo is drawn with a flashlight. The director's site can be found at www.takkuroha.com, and the site for PIPS:lab, where the light painters in the video came from, is at www.pipslab.nl. Some of these videos can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC17QW_HQZ4, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdwdXEvYtBs&feature=related, and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BcX6YA2VeU&feature=related.

I love these films. I don't see what they have to do with the car they're promoting; in fact, I don't remember even seeing the car itself in any of the films. However, they are very eye catching. There really seems to be no message to the videos beyond the light painting itself, other than the tagline "Reject The Ordinary", which I assume is promoting the uniqueness of the car itself, which is a compact Euro SUV crossover. I would be interested in this video no matter what company the video is for. It's really quite a generic ad campaign, as you could switch the Ford Kuga product with almost anything. The novelty of the light painting ends up selling the product instead of the product selling itself. It makes me more interested in seeing more light painting than making me interested in the company it's advertising.