High Five: The Art of Selling Strange
I remember watching 'Twin Peaks' for the first time. As an A-level Film Studies student (who thought I was uber cool and mysterious at the time and liked to out-do my peers in anything pop culture-related wherever possible), it hit the nail on the head. My eyes were opened to the weird and wonderful cult world of David Lynch.
Lynch had a tie-in to the commercial industry with his deep fascination in ads. Spanning luxury fashion, technology, pharmaceuticals, automobiles, food and drink and even PSAs, he managed to turn anything and everything into so much more than an ad – mini surrealist masterpieces that, you might say, were even stranger than his vast filmography.
Lynch had a tie-in to the commercial industry with his deep fascination in ads. Spanning luxury fashion, technology, pharmaceuticals, automobiles, food and drink and even PSAs, he managed to turn anything and everything into so much more than an ad – mini surrealist masterpieces that, you might say, were even stranger than his vast filmography.
So, as cinema is saddened by this week’s news of his passing, it felt only right to bring his artistry to the forefront and reflect on five campaigns directed (or inspired by) the prolific man himself...
adidas - 'The Wall'
Agency: Leagas Delaney
Director: David Lynch
Deemed "one of the strangest footwear advertisements of all time", 'The Wall' is a 60-second spot for the ’93 ‘Tubular’ running shoe from adidas -- the design of which was so ahead of its time that manufacturing was discontinued due to expense. As if in keeping with this futuristic shoe, the ad itself is blazoned with avant-garde Lynch-esque motifs and editing (flames, fleshy close-ups, lightening, a scorpion?) supposedly depicting “the hell and heaven a long-distance runner experiences in going through the pain barrier.”
PlayStation 2 - 'The Third Place'
Agency: TBWA\Paris agency
Director: David Lynch
In 2000, Lynch teamed up with Sony to promote the new PlayStation 2 console. Well, they chose the right director to reinforce the imaginative, immersivity and other-worldly power of gaming. Floating heads, a talking duck and other nonsensical visuals certainly have a way of depicting the sensory experience to early tech adopters.
NYC Department of Sanitation - 'We Care About New York'
Director: David Lynch
As intense and creepy as you’d expect, and still relevant today. Lynch’s anti-littering PSA for the NYC Department of Sanitation shows Gothamites trashing the city, and in turn, cutting to close-ups of scuttling rats being enticed by the dirt and mess. “Clean up. We care about New York. 212-686-1001”, reads the end-frame as the scary soundtrack crescendos.
H&M - 'Blue Velvet'
Agency: Universal McCann (UM)
Director: Johan Renck
Now, this one’s not directed by Lynch, but to show the prevalence of his aesthetic and soundtrack -- even today -- let’s roll with the high-street fashion brand, H&M’s 2012 homage to Lynch with their 'Blue Velvet' campaign, starring Lana Del Rey (a real-life modern Lynch prototype, if ever there was one).
Gü - 'Gü you Ganache?'
Agency: Mother London
Director: Mattias Montero
Another homage to the legacy of Lynch, the dessert brand Gü made its TV debut back in 2010 with an unsettling and even more intriguing Wisteria-Lane-meets-David-Lynch campaign. It sees a woman being drawn into a Lynch-like set-up within a house as she’s met with the one scripted line in the whole ad: "Gü you Ganache?".
