This ad is part of a new campaign for The American Cancer Society, directed by cancer survivor Rodrigo Garcia Saiz. While the first spot, Courage speaks to the digging-deep-down-to-face-our-fears emotion it takes to get through the process, for both patient and loved one, this spot speaks to anger. In the spot a woman is angry. Really angry. She's chopping wood kind of angry. And then you realize she's doing it as much out of frustration in dealing with her kid's cancer as she is providing firewood to warm her kid. Which is such an amazing detail because having watched my mom die from cancer, you lose a lot of weight and your T count drops and you get cold. So that is a really nice touch.
But the VO, man. The VO is where they lost me completely because it veered toward the ridiculous at the end. After this great set up and powerful imagery, the VO turns into the local sheriff and is basically like "Hey cancer, you better get on your horse and leave town or we're going to run you out."
For real? You may say I'm splitting semantic hairs, but this isn't an ad for Kotex, and nuance matters here. The CD should have told the copywriter to fix that ending. Otherwise, this is a really nice campaign.
Agency: DDB Chicago
Director: Rodrigo Garcia Saiz
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The visuals alone in this were better than all the VO which I pretty much tuned after "You get mad to the core angry". I got it. She mad.
...And then yes, it hit me in the gut when I saw it was firewood for the kid. Ouch.
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PermalinkLook at Hells Kitchen!!! Please!!! Promoting cigarette smoking!! Trying to quit... But really makes me want a cigarette. It works.. It's obvious it forced even by non smokers on that show by body language.
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PermalinkThe directing and story here is great, the actress has loads of emotions when shopping wood. But I agree with you, the voice over is too clunky. Maybe the VO would have worked better if it had been read by a woman?
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