Just finished watching the Gunners’ last game at Highbury, finishing up 93 years of playing in the same stadium (in amazing 4-2 fashion).
Wish I could have been there.
Now, it’s time to await May 17 when we go up against Barcelona in the Champions League finals. It works equally well in soccer as it does in advertising: fuck FCB.
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Sunday, May 7th, 2006 at 05:24pm
Mack Simpson
Entry Filed under: No Really, A Life | add this post to del.icio.us
Technorati Tags: Soccer, Football, Futbol, Arsenal, Gunners, Highbury, Premiership, Barcelona
I’m corresponding with an ad major from the University of Texas, David Wen (who has a blog, The Ranch), and he brought up a Pepsi spot he’d seen.
The spot, “Tamal,” is one of the first spots I did at Dieste after joining the shop and it won a sprinkling of awards. (My second Pepsi spot, “Taco Stand,” sent me to Cannes.)
“Tamal” is one of the few Pepsi spots I’ve done that was meant to air in Spanish 100% of the time, and was created back when the Pepsi strategy was Pepsi + Food = Good. The copy at the end of the spot is a nice double entendre in Spanish.
A tamal, of course, is another word for tamale (and also the singular of tamales). “Tamal” is also a shortened, slanged-up word meaning “it’s bad,” as in “está mal,” just as “tabien” is a shortened, slanged-up word meaning “it’s good” (está bien).
Here’s the spot– it’s a for-client-approval-only copy (the only one I could find on my computer, since the spot was completed in 2002 or 2003, I forget which) that has a rough V.O. (my agency partner at the time, Jaime) and an English title card at the end— but you’ll get the point.
Pepsi — Tamal — :30
Jaime Andrade (the same Jaime that just won at FIAP) and I get CD credits, Francisco Cardenas gets a CW credit and Jose Suaste (again, from FIAP) gets the AD slot. The music is “Guajira (I Love U 2 Much)” by Yerba Buena (”good herb”).
As a tiny bit of ad trivia, “Guajira” (which is slang for “hot girl”) wasn’t my first choice of tracks for the spot. My first choice was actually Manu Chao’s “Me Gustas Tu,” (”I like you”), a track you can find sitting at #32 on the Music for Monkeys playlist. Manu Chao is a hella-good artist, with emphasis on the “art” part. He’s the former vocal lead of the French Punk rock band, Mano Negra– “black hand”– (you can find a Mano Negra track sitting at #1 in Music for Monkeys). French Punk, by the way, is way different than what you might be accustomed to; I blame it on the tasty, bourgeois rillettes.
I knew better going in– given his Punk rock background and his anti-commercial P.O.V., but I had to try to get “Me Gustas Tu” anyway because it was just so perfect for the spot. Long story short, Manu Chao wouldn’t even return my calls. Oh well. Still love his music. (There’s a third track of his sitting at #29, recorded with the French Punk group Noir Desir (”dark desire”).)
Anyhow, I hope you enjoy the spot and thanks to David Wen for reminding me of it.
Edit: I’ve found the for-air version of “Tamal.” It’s a larger file (18+ megs).
Pepsi — Tamal (For Air)– :30
This version has final picture, sound and VO in place (sorry, Jaime).
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Sunday, May 7th, 2006 at 10:32am
Mack Simpson
Entry Filed under: Ad Monkeys, Ad Jungle, Video | add this post to del.icio.us
Technorati Tags: Pepsi, Tamal, Manu, Chao, Yerba, Buena, Guajira
