Geoff Kirk, executive creative director, Index Creative Communications:
It has been a dull 12 months for Irish advertising. Even the UK which can usually be relied on for a couple of mould-breakers has seen a disappointing year with only the big jingoistic British Airways production and a handful of witty ads such as Lynx and John West to liven up the breaks.
Lynx deodorant's Ideal Woman campaign where women say lines men dream of hearing (I could listen to you talk about football all day) is wry and sharply observed; one of those rare gender issue commercials which women as well as men seem to like and find funny, though probably for different reasons.
The new John West Salmon Grizzly Bear commercial has only just broken so it might be too early to say, but it's a little gem and looks like the start of a very promising campaign, in the classic single-minded proposition tradition.
But this year there's no competition: the best advertising in 2000 came from the US and the outstanding ad by a long chalk is DDB Chicago's "Whassup?" for Budweiser. Disregarding its enormous impact in the States, this ad has gone straight into our subculture so quickly and to such an extent that you can't go out of an evening without hearing the call Whassup a half a dozen times.
It's certainly been the most talked about commercial this year, unusual that it has captured public imagination and achieved industry recognition at the same time.
How did the agency ever manage to pitch the idea in the first place and what inspired the client to go with it? It spectacularly breaks the rules of beer advertising and believe me, it would not sound convincing on paper, not even to the people who bought the similarly successful Frogs.
Four twenty-something, multiracial, sad-bastard guys, including a lone drinker, do nothing, say nothing to each other in African American slang, and are bonded by a ritual call, whassup? No pub. No pouring, no heroic product shot. One more thing - no brief. All manner of reasons why it shouldn't work, and then a few more about why it shouldn't work in Ireland. But true to the mercurial nature of the business, it does.
Of course that's not how it happened. In reality, the director and one of the ad's stars, Charles Stone, made a short, hyper-real promotional film of himself and his buddies which DDB picked up on and redirected to Budweiser. No big leap of faith, though a fair bit of courage. The only question remaining now is will Budweiser continue to have the courage to keep challenging its young audience when that could mean knowing when to let go and move on?
