The shop called David&Goliath have these hamsters rocking the fug out. And they do it in a pretty convincing hip hop fashion. They pay homage to a great semi-classic track by The Black Sheep, its kind of ironic since their was a black ad shop once that was called "Black Sheep" (SHOUTS to Tobi, Marlon & Retta.) In the course of doing all this vehicle hocking we see these car-hood-rats slide through a vinyl shop, a car wash, the basketball court & barber shop, "Who's a black rat?" BTW, they live on "Hamsterdam Ave," rock Hoodies 'n Tims & wear warm-ups, nice touch. All of those locales are pretty cliche but they aren't romanced in the spot as much as they are referenced. The spot is so well done that it seems to be nit picky and a bit small minded to concern myself with rather or not its offensive to Hip Hop culture or Black people in general. It's obvious the agency has done their homework on this piece. Of course there is no lack of subject matter to study, but they took the time to do it. The moves the CGI hamsters make are pretty convincing, and no easy feat, the gear, an easy study but studied non-the-less. Thank god they also avoided the dreaded copywriter as lyricist dead-end, go get you rap career started on your own time home-dude.
Mookie n 'Nem say...
Kia's new Black Rat Sheep joint is stoopid dope. Call us at 1-800-HATERADE if you disagree. We'll come over and knock the taste back into your head until you come to your senses and appreciate this artful communication.
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9 comments:
They will use blacks and black culture in the ads, use them to sell a car, but I bet u 100% of the time those same blacks if they were to apply to work at those agencies would not be allowed to step foot in those agencies, that created these same ads. Likewise black agencies are never given those same opportunities to create ads.
Anon, So true! But we must figure a way to deliver this for ourselves.
this is a little disturbing.
shaun, just a little, but I think I'm getting desensitized. Help a brother out.
Pretty good post. I just came by your blog and wanted to say that I’ve really enjoyed reading your blog posts. In any case I’ll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you write again soon!
This is hilarious, love your blog following you hope you can do the same :)
OK this is tough as I think about your response above about becoming desensitized, I wonder if I'm missing something or am I falling for the okey doke (spelling?). I feel a lot of love in this/for this ad...I think because this is one of the verrrry few that I feel like is capturing/ displaying/borrowing from what I would accept as black culture (not that my acceptance or rejection has any merit in the real world, lol!) What makes this work for me is of course The Black Sheep, but also the "swag" you mentioned. It isn't about poor grammar, being disrespectful of oneself or others, or otherwise displaying foolishness. Yeah, they're hamsters (and I'm not sure about why), but they did capture the confidence, style, and can I say grace (?) that The Black Sheep and artists like them embodied back in the 90's. The huge earphones, the hoodies, the Tims, and moves...*sigh*. You can actually here what they're saying and their real voices...those were the days!
Not getting caught up with the stereotyping, it's cute and even funny.
I agree this ad company did their homework well, and I can see a lot of their intended audience (young guys) liking it.
Fuzzy sez:
I think it was right on the money. They're friggin hamsters! While I'm sure I'd have a problem being a fly on the wall and hearing the creatives coming up with the visual gags (the real question is 'Would I be still be uncomfortable if the creatives were black?') I think they did it in a technically smart and insightful manner. Hip hop hamsters as the heroes! Can't hate.
ps- mo-cap and texture mapping has come a long way thanks to Weta and Gollum.
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