20 years on Carlton Draught’s ‘The Big Ad’ still towers as an icon of Australian advertising

It’s hard to believe, but 20 years have passed since Carlton Draught’s The Big Ad first burst onto our screens and into Australian culture. Launched on August 7, 2005, the 60-second epic redefined what a beer commercial could be. Conceived by James McGrath, Ant Keogh and Grant Rutherford at George Patterson Y&R Melbourne (now VML), and directed by Paul Middleditch of Plaza Films, the spot mixed blockbuster scale with self-deprecating humour and instantly entered the Australian advertising canon. To mark the 20-year milestone, Campaign Brief caught up with Rutherford, Keogh and Middleditch to reflect on the making of The Big Ad and what it means today.

When you first came up with the idea for “The Big Ad,” did you have any sense it would become one of the most iconic Australian ads of all time?

Grant Rutherford: I thought if we could pull it off, it would be great. But you never get ahead of yourself or arrogant enough thinking it will be ‘iconic’ (other people’s words, not mine). At the time it was taking off virally, people were telling Ant and I how many thousands of shares it had. That seemed nice, but to be honest we were too busy writing ‘Barry the Cougar Dawson’ for Cougar Bourbon to take any real notice. That dawned a bit later.

Ant Keogh: You have to remember, Youtube had only just come out and hadn’t caught on. The ad instead was put out on another now extinct video platform – you actually had to click a button and accept a download to watch it but at least it played big on your screen, which Youtube didn’t. That’s why, to this day, it doesn’t have many Youtube hits.

The parody of “O Fortuna” is such a bold creative choice – where did the inspiration strike, and how quickly did you know it was “the one”?

GR: The inspiration came on a train from Flinders Street to Sandringham via Elsternwick. Ant and I had just come out of a presentation to CUB that went really well but didn’t fly for ‘commercial’ reasons. It was an altogether different, yet big song and dance inspired ad. The new ad was literally based around one big scene in the failed ad. ‘O’ fortuna’ came screaming into focus when Ant, overnight, did a quick video with the song (in German) using English subtitles on a black screen. Sometimes I seriously wonder whether we needed to put images to it at all! So stupidly funny.

AK: We presented it to the client in three parts. To set the scene, we played the original song, then we explained the visual side of it, using just a few hand-drawn visuals of the main epic scenes and we acted out the script, jumping around the room, then we played the new lyrics using the video subtitle- tape, I’d already made.

The shoot in Queenstown looked massive. What was the biggest challenge in bringing that scale to life?

GR: To be honest, from a shoot perspective, it all seemed effortless. And that’s the brilliance of Paul Middleditch but equally Peter Masterton his producer and all the pre-visualization and planning. After all, someone’s got to make it all happen – wrangle 350 extras from the Queenstown pubs, a horse, a bogged bus, shooting in the middle of nowhere, a very expensive weather day, physical injuries, a cast that didn’t know where they were going but were sure hell-bent on getting there – what could possibly go wrong?

On a production level, every scene, shot, edit had to be choreographed within an inch of its life. A ridiculous but necessary amount of work went into the planning. Yes, we had 350 extras running around on the ground, people tripping over fence, but it was the crowd replication (aerial shots) that were the hardest to make look real. Thank God for Animal Logic who’d just come off doing Happy Feet with George Miller and gave it absolutely everything they had.

AK: As I remember it, the edit, by Peter Whitmore, was basically perfect the first time I saw it. I think we swapped the order of two little shots, that’s it. I remember on my very first view feeling really excited when the music kicks in and the two ‘armies’ charge and feeling like, ‘hey,… I think this is really working’…. Having said that, even on the shoot it had a good feeling. The actors all slowly cottoned on to the concept as, over the course of the day, more of those lyrics boomed across the landscape. They realised we were taking the piss and kind of got into the spirit of it.

Paul Middleditch: Making Big Ad involved a very complex shoot. As well as the leads, we had 350 extras – all had to be costumed and sorted into groups on the first day. It was planned as a two-day shoot, but we had weather issues immediately.

I storyboarded the whole ad and timed it as all the lyrics were in sequence, so it only had one way to come together which meant we could really commit on the shoot exclusively to what was going to end up on screen. Performance was about passion and a straight face. I did the dancing choreography – it needed to look crap and I love bad dancing.

All the chopper shots were landscape plates, then the two armies were created using the ‘Massive’ animation software which was pretty new at the time. We did this did with Animal Logic.

How did you approach directing it to make sure it felt both epic and funny?

PM: To make the ad with totally serious impact and film making. Then let the casting and conviction of the actors express the piss take of big, expensive, self-important ads.

Looking back now, 20 years on, what does “The Big Ad” mean to you personally and professionally?

GR: I love having done the ‘Big Ad’, but it’s one of many in the ‘Made from Beer’ campaign for which I’m most proud. My Mum was sent the film from someone in the UK and passed it on to me. She thought I’d like it. I loved that. She even gave Ant a present for making her ‘famous’ in her office, not that he probably remembers.

As for professionally, I got to collaborate with my good mates, doing what we loved, subverting advertising, entertaining ourselves, having a laugh and showing that creative advertising can, and should be effective beyond award shows.

AK: Grant and I were lucky enough to get to work on Carlton Draught for an extended time and got the chance to create a personality around the brand that also happened to suit our comic sensibility, which doesn’t happen all the time. And Big Ad was probably my favourite of all those Carlton Draught ads. Luckily, we had the right people around us, account service, client-side, to get that work through intact, and the success of that ad made it easier to do good work ongoing, since everyone on all sides wanted ‘more of that please’. It’s a good experience for anyone involved agency or client-side, to get the hit of confidence that comes with doing something bold and it working out. In fact, there was a whole ‘beer war’ that escalated based on the two breweries trying to out-do each other and it led to a lot of interesting Australian work that’s still held up to this day.

PM: It is great to have made one of the big moments in ad history.

The Big Ad went on to win more than 30 major awards, including a Gold Lion at Cannes (plus runner-up Film Grand Prix), a D&AD Graphite Pencil, and a Gold Pencil at The One Show. In 2011, The One Club voted it the best beer ad of the previous 15 years. Carlton Draught cemented itself as more than a beer; it became part of the national advertising identity.

Agency: George Patterson Y&R, Melbourne
Creative Director: James McGrath
Writer: Ant Keogh
Art Director: Grant Rutherford
Agency Producer: Pip Heming
Group Communications Director: Paul McMillan

Production Company: Plaza Films
Director: Paul Middleditch
Executive Producer: Peter Masterton
DoP: Andrew Lesnie

Post- Production: Animal Logic
VFX Supervisor: Andrew Jackson
Senior Compositor: Angus Wilson
VFX Producer: Caroline Renshaw

Editor: Peter Whitmore – Winning Post Productions
Music: Cezary Skubiszewski