Think On Becoming…meets reality

If you’ve ever watched one of those MTV shows where they pull kids out of bed in the burbs, pimp up their lives for a few days, and have them ‘star’ in a remake of a music video, we pity you, as they are both poorly executed and lack humour. The work for Z-95, however, is neither. The only thing the spots out of Rethink, Vancouver for radio station Z-95 have in common with the genre is workaday-folks acting out heavily rotated music clips.

In one, a bevy of hot model types gyrate to Kylie Minogue’s ‘Can’t Get You Out of My Head.’ It looks like a music video, but the fantasy is interrupted by an old guy in a wheelchair scowling at them from the nursing station: ‘It’s time for my sponge bath.’ Turns out the dancers are nurses vigorously ignoring call buttons.

A similar scenario plays out with a young lothario in an alley singing Hoobastank’s ‘I’m Not a Perfect Person’ to his girl, interrupted by an annoyed waitress popping out of the kitchen to haul him back to work. Both are nicely done, and real enough to make the endings a smile-worthy surprise.

Writer Heather Vincent explains that Z-95 had changed formats from hip hop to a more mature – 23-37 – female-skewed playlist. To get across the station’s switch to well-known tracks from the ’80s and ’90s, as well as current tunes, they tapped the consumer insight that if you hear something you know and like, you hum along. Or belt and bop, as the case may be. While mulling over the brief in a café, Vincent actually saw staffers (no doubt over-caffeinated) start singing and dancing behind the counter when a favourite tune came on.

This led to the idea of having some ordinary folks act out a whole video, and Kranky – director Larry Shanet (who has a wicked howl-out-loud reel at www.shootersfilm.com/kranky.html), made it so in ‘Hospital’ and ‘Diner.’ ‘Diner’ is currently airing through October, but ‘Hospital’ was pulled after nurses complained, adding even more media weight to the efforts.

client: Z-95

music: Koko Productions

You are cordially invited to submit your new, dead clever and previously unrevealed campaigns to: editorial director Mary Maddever at mmaddever@brunico.com and creative director Stephen Stanley at sstanley@brunicocom, co-curators of strategy’s Creative space.

Check out the clips, er spots, at www.strategymag.com/screening room/