CAMPAIGN
RSA – Cell
Developed by Grey Advertising for the TAC in Victoria, Australia, ‘Cell’ was adapted for the Irish market by Publicis QMP. It is part of the RSA’s current anti-drug driving campaign, which was launched at the end of July.
The latest TV ad from the RSA to warn young people against driving under the influence of drugs is one I really like, but not for all the reasons you might think. You might think it’s the end line – ‘If you drive on drugs you’re
out of your mind’. But, you’d be wrong – I dislike it a lot. It’s very good but its playful wordsmithery makes me think more about its double meaning than what the events in the ad are telling me. If any ad didn’t need a line, this is it, but I suppose they need a slogan to put on posters. The ad’s construct is a well-established technique – story
told in flashback, nothing new there. Its casting of the typical target – young men, 18-24, socialisers, cool fashion sense – is, well, typical I suppose. Don't get me wrong, it's good that it’s typical in the true sense of the word; the 'type' of person, who does this 'type' of thing and wears these 'types' of clothes. But it feels a little like the agency announcing to the target that 'this is who you are, we know you so well'. As the story unfolds we see the sequence of events that
have led to a car driver ending up in a police cell. In a nightclub, our protagonist is on the dance floor as a dealer/friend gives him a drug and coerces him into taking it. This dealer/friend has been cast to perfection; he's smarmy, untrustworthy and, in the next scene when he takes the young man by the hair in a booth, has an uneasy air of a sexual predator. He also gives the guy a moral 'out' because he can blame the dealer. The ad says more about unscrupulous dealers/friends rather than tak-
Michael Walsh is creative director at Leo Burnett.
ing personal responsibility. The following scenes in dreamy Trainspotting vibe are what
you would expect; we see him off his face and ill at ease, mak- ing a nuisance of himself bumping into other clubbers, freaking himself out while staring in a mirror – boxes ticked. It’s when they leave the club that it gets interesting – the cold
early morning exit and desaturated atmosphere give an air of foreboding. You know, I know and, let’s face it, the director knows we know, that someone is about to come a cropper. We follow the action as they stumble out the alley where the
club is, past the dumpster and cut to the ride home. Again, what goes on in the car is to be expected: the driver annoys other traffic users (tick), he mounts the kerb to display his impaired driving skills (tick), we see the car’s interior and his distorted POV (tick). It’s what happens next, or rather how it’s handled, that is the unexpected thing – a beautiful, subtle depiction of lives ruined. There’s a sudden spider-webbing in the corner of the wind- screen with a smashed cherry tomato of blood at its centre, a screech of brakes, a body in the road – no slow motion toss and tumble of a body in the air, no screaming children/parents or stoic onlooking OAPs as they see the folly of youth realised, just the quick, what-just-happened death and the shock reali- sation on the faces of the car’s occupants that something real- ly, really terrible just happened. Perfection.
Volume 4 Issue 3 2010 Marketing Age 39
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