Why is this Great Ad Great? #2
Often in the workshops I run for creatives I’ll ask them to bring along a commercial they love. And of all the hundreds of commercials that have been shared there is one that pops up again and again. Which is kind of surprising, given that it’s a 15 year old film for a Germany energy company about wind power …
What is it about ‘The Wind’ that makes it so successful? Why does it still appeal to so many people today, many of whom aren’t German and were just kids when it first came out? Why is this great ad great?
Well, in a nutshell, I think it’s what happens when you match simplicity of idea with subtlety of execution. As with all great advertising, everything is built upon a searingly clear concept that can be encapsulated in a single sentence: the wind is personified as a misunderstood man who finds his calling only once his true power is recognised.
That’s it.
No tiered messaging or extra parentheses required.
Just one super simple idea.*
And the wonderful thing about this particular idea is that it immediately removes any danger of falling into the category conventions that come with talking about alternative energy. There are no grand statements about the planet or a ‘better world for all of us’, no piety or hectoring or platitudes. Instead we’re made to feel … well, that’s just the thing, we don’t know how to feel.
There’s a peculiar looking man who tells us that he is lonely over a series of vignettes of him committing acts of anti-social behaviour. He flicks sand in kids’ faces, lifts up a woman’s skirt (the one thing that identifies the age of the ad, and which today wouldn’t have made the script) and knocks off a man’s hat. We should be horrified at his behaviour. Yet the melancholic piano score, his gentle, reflective delivery and his sadness all arouse our sympathy. We become conflicted. And so the ad holds us. We need to know who this man is and how this is going to be resolved; we become enthralled by the story.
And it’s because of this conflict that the resolution, when it finally comes, is so satisfying. Phew, it’s OK, our man in black is not some dangerous deviant, he is … the wind. All is well in the end.
It’s a classic storytelling dynamic, one we know from countless movies: unhappy and underappreciated character is able, through a chance encounter, to use their negative attributes for good. That the directing team were able to make the story as compelling as it is in two minutes, rather than two hours, is a wonderful achievement.
At least some of their success is due to the casting of the man mountain that is Guillaume Delaunay. I remember when I first saw the ad thinking that prosthetics must have been deployed. But no, he actually does look like that. In an interview, the Vikings, the directing team behind the commercial, said that casting had been their greatest challenge, “We looked at tons of people. The actor we ended up choosing was literally the last guy who came to our final session.” Which goes to show that sometimes you just need a little bit of luck.
If I were to pick a hole it would be a very small one. The title card at the end feels tacked on. Perhaps there would be less chance of misattribution if the ‘Epuron’ logo had been integrated within the body of the film, in a close up of the wind turbine perhaps?
But this is a minor quibble. Overall this great ad is great because it plays out a super simple idea with exquisite craft and storytelling. It eschews the clichés of the genre to deliver an initially uncomfortable viewing experience followed by the relief of an elegant resolve.
And like the very best commercials you can watch it again, and again, and again.
Agency - Nordpol+ Hamburg
Creative Director - Lars Ruehmann
Copywriter - Matthew Branning
Art directors - Bjoern Ruehmann & Joakim Reveman
Director – The Vikings
Production Company – Paranoid Projects
Post – Mikros Image
Music – Pigalle Productions
*That the idea is so simple is all the more impressive when you discover that there were two clients on the project – Epuron, who were seeking investors, and the German Ministry for the Environment, who were hoping to raise public awareness of alternative energy. I can only imagine how knotty the brief must have been.