Cadbury’s slammed for ‘Gorilla’ remix
March 28 2009, 1:05 am | | 76 Comments
UPDATE: Saatchi & Saatchi, Sydney and Cadbury’s have come in for some heavy flak from the YouTubers and elsewhere for releasing the multi award-winning ‘Gorilla’ spot, created by Fallon London, using John Farnham’s ‘You’re the Voice’ instead of Phil Collins’ ‘In the air tonight’.
However, according to those close to the situation, it was the client’s idea, which was also approved by Fallon, London.
76 Comments
WHY, WHY, WHY……How embarassing!
Maybe saatchis have just done what they’ve been told to!
STUPID.
I saw it on TV and thought it was going to be a spoof for Rove or something like that. It was out of sync, you can’t hear the drums and it’s John Farnham!! Oh but no it’s been dubbed for real!! What?
I bet the client just said DO IT to Saatchis. How can an advertiser think this is a good thing to do? What would their counterpart in London who approved the original think? Maybe “you haven’t a clue you numbskull regional manager take it off air immediately.” A great example of how to look very very stupid in the eyes of the public.
I could go on but it’s not worth it…
The video responses on You Tube EIGHTEEN MONTHS AGO were better than this.
If Saatchi indeed claims credit to this “production”, we can assume they thought this was good.
MASSIVE, HUGE, BIG FAIL
DUMB.
Asking a girl, two minutes into a first date, if she’s into anal would be more appropriate than what they just did to Gorilla.
good enough for Coldplay.
I really liked it. On mute.
No one at Saatchi & Saatchi would have thought this was a good idea.
More likely it was the client’s wife or Cadbury’s receptionist.
Oh I get it.
So if it’s good and the people like it, it was Saatchi’s idea and if it’s shithouse, the client made them do it.
It’s shit and it has been PR’d with Saatchi’s name on it. End of story.
This just goes to show how the local client and/our agency doesn’t actually get why the ad worked in the first place. This is just cheap and overly ethnocentric. Dumb.
Could have been a licensing issue for the tune? Maybe they had no choice but to change it for the AU market.
Couldnt think of a worse song to go with this ad
A suit or a team of suit need to resign over this. I am usually reserved on this blog but honestly that was the worst thing I have seen since working in advertising for the last 10 years. It is a blemish in the good work of Fallon and Saatchi’s name to boot.
Hang your heads in shame.
Oh and yeah I fucking HATE that song in the first place, so I am a lil biased
Surely this could only be an April Fools Day gag gone horribly wrong ?
This is the client!! Why are they this way, one step forward two steps back. Are we that money hungry that we can’t invest in time well spent. This was a classic, for all of 30 seconds, until the client wanted another quick fix. Short term thinking Cadbury.
11:33 I know a place you can do that and not get slapped.
This is awful. Not even synced / dubbed properly? WTF?
I hope whoever cut this didn’t get paid.
I could do a better job in i-movie.
much better than the original
WOEFUL WOEFUL WOEFUL WOEFUL…….AND WOEFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
POOR SAATCHIS….DUMB CLIENT.
Absolute poison. this makes me sick
wait and see…. it’s a joke or a point is going to be made…..
i hope…
3:02
I agree with your sentiment but to say it was the idea of ‘the client’s wife or the receptionist’ just exposes you ingrained sexism. Because all bad ideas come from women, don’t they?
Stick to print ads boys. Better still Olay or Sony Print ads.
cringe worthy! The monkies not even in time!
First time Ive ever blogged – it must be bad!
the gorilla actually looks like John Farnham, for a minute it had me confused.. i thought it was actually him!
You can see the casemovie even now “We needed to refresh the Gorilla campaign and create interest in the Australian market, so we replaced Phil with John and then waited for the indignant public to react. Finally, after 2 weeks of campaigning and riots outside the BC offices, we ran the original version. Job done” Very clever. Just wait for the “I love John” and “I love Phil” website click-off. This thing could become huge
I presume the client forced this one. Whoever you are, you should stand down immediately. This has to go down as one of the stupidest acts in Advertising.
You could have at least snyched the action to the music – unfucking believable!!!!!
7:14.
How the fuck did you arrive at this sexist crap? 3:02 mentioned “the client’s wife and the receptionist.” You assumed the receptionist is female. Seems like you’re the sexist here.
Get back on topic and off the stupid pills.
The Gorilla actually looks like someone at Saatchi & Saatchi.
I am shocked… Can we please have someone from Saatchis or Cadbury clear the air on this one, namely WHY?
Look, we all know that Saatchis were forced into this.
And somehow it got leaked out onto the blog.
M&C were forced into producing a nasty US ad for Pizza Hut,
And somehow it got leaked out onto the blog.
EVERY AGENCY has to deal with these fucking idiot clients day in day out.
Here’s one.
Remember that cool South American ad for Lynx? You know, where the sweat squirts out of the poor guy’s armpit?
South Americans are pretty clever, so all they needed was a cool music track under the ad because EVERYONE FUCKING GOT THE GAG.
But Lynx Australia? NAH! They think us Aussies are stupid.
So, they put wall to wall dialogue of a young Aussie girl talking about this guy’s problem, and how he eventually fixed it with the product.
Thus making the ad quite revolting as it the girl’s VO implied this was a real event. Eeeaaarrrggghhh.
And, in one foul swoop, fucked the ad.
I think Prince said it best.
“..Why do we scream at each other? This what it sounds like.. when clients are cunts.”
We all know who the real enemy is, so why do we badmouth the poor saps who a forced to do what they’re told ‘or we’ll move the business…’ ?
Saw it last week and couldn’t believe it. The money they spent on the John Farnham track, they could have produced something simple and clever and run that as opposed to destroying something that was great.
What did the planner say……?
All the receptionists at Saatchis are male.
http://www.freddieforever.com.au/
Same client, different agency.
Grows some balls Saatchi’s. Either do what you profess to or refuse to do it.
What a classic example of how to kill off a successful viral campaign.
March 28, 2009 9:48 PM here, just wanted to sorry for the abuse.
It’s not a good idea to check your iphone safari for a local suva joint on a drinking binge and checking the blog while drunk.
Still, not a nice adaptation
We’re in a room with enough people a fart could slip by un-noticed. A few people notice a smell and just try to be polite about it. Suddenly some goose trying to avoid embarrassment puts their hand up and went ‘Hey! Pull my finger! It was me!’. Needless to say the fart didn’t go down to well and everyone remembered him as the dick that does farts, a dickfarter who could have just let it slip but made it rip.
For everyone as dumb as the client thinks Aussies are, the fart represents the ad. Notice the use of pull my finger is also a reference to another gag that people do before they drop a bomb, drop a bomb means fart as well.
Really interesting article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/sep/05/advertising.marketingandpr
8:42 – While we all have difficult and sometimes stupid clients, your rant is the sort of juvenile shit that drags us all down. Is it any wonder that the advice of agencies is often ignored when people like you carry on like a hormonal 15 year old?
“We all know who the real enemy is”? Not to mention your unfunny attempt at a Prince joke.
You might be taken a bit more seriously when you can communicate like an adult.
Re-editing Gorilla was clearly a bad idea, but you my friend, are an idiot.
is this a joke? you might want to know at least a bit about music. this song uses a drum machine, which starts way before mr gorilla anyway
8.42. The expression is “one fell swoop”.
April Fools Gay
Sorry all, I thought the original Gorialla was low borrowed interest. And this?
Johnny Farnam, Gorilla,and chocolate? Fuck me.
Was it the agency or was it the client? Does anybody really know?
In New Zealand, they simply played the Phil Collins ‘Air of Night’ track when they ran this ad. No dramas, you know.
Steve Back is a true creative heavyweight so it’s obvious he wouldn’t have liked this. It was obviously the client’s decision.
Shit happens.
Simone would never have allowed this.
I just hope this isn’t the beginning of a long, slow decline a la The Campaign Palace.
…and you guys wonder why clients don’t listen to their agencies? We’d listen if you didn’t talk so much crap.
Funny thing it was PR’d – who sent it!?
And check out this gold…..how to ‘Saatchify’ an ad…..
http://justonemoregame.wordpress.com/2009/03/27/saatchify-an-ad-make-a-million/?source=cmailer
It’s an ad.
If you hate it, change the channel or buy Lindt chocolate.
My kids and I saw this ad on TV the other day – we LOVED it and played it again and again. I was told by a mate who works in your business that the ‘Ad Nonce Brigade’ were giving it a kicking. I felt compelled to put the other (not totally up my arse) pov. It’s just a bit of fun. Reading your comments you would think that this country produces lots of good advertising – what a joke!
as if.
published a day before AFD, which makes is very unfucking funny.
Pile of shit all up.
I see some clients have made their way onto this site/blog.
How truly embarrassing for the industry.
I’m sure reading some comments on this blog have done wonders for the perception that advertising is full of talented, yet dumb, myopic wankers.
I assure you, we’re not all like that.
For all the battlers spewing their worthless vitriol about this ad:
As someone has already said, it’s just an ad. Get over yourselves and stop pretending we’re saving babies, or creating a Picasso.
Contrary to the opinion of lots of the bloggers … the cut is better than the original.
I actually got the gag this time. This is borrowed interest crap well done.
There’s a gag???
It’s worse, plain and simple. Much more so.
Pathetic comment “it’s just an ad”. We’re on a blog about advertising, you knit wit.
What’s sad is someone working in this industry wrote that.
Just the kind of acceptance that leads to sub-standard work.
If you don’t believe what you do is of any significance, fuck off and let people who care more than you attempt to be better than acceptable. It’s hard enough to do, quite honestly, without people like you holding this industry back.
So bad it’s ruined the original, which was both brave and memorable.
Case in point to discourage retrofitting good work for overseas markets.
9.02pm March 30 – love it. Check this. Works a treat.
http://www.youtubedoubler.com/?video1=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D4iG4t0XYNWA&video2=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D7YUuyzQDmjY
I laughed, 6:42. I laughed.
6:42, is that u cuz?
lol….6:42….very good! surprised more people haven’t tried it yet?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdgI0j1odkY
a version that some youtuber did. cadbury’s are now running it in the UK.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdgI0j1odkY
it’s fucking brilliant!
puts the punks at saatchi’s to shame.
7.47 … well sourced. Agree. The song choice makes brilliant and relevant something that was weak borrowed interest. What a grabber. Gonna get some Cadbury TONIGHT!!!
Cadbury OZ and Scratchies, run it here!
And bullshit clients at that. Tony Parkes or whoever you are, stop talking crap and trying to convince us. No one believes you. No one. The public remembers this ad, for god’s sake, it’s been viewed millions of times on YouTube, emailed, talked about in TV shows and screened on Free to air TV. Consumers actually know this piece of communication very, very well. More than you imagine. They do remember Phil Collins track. The first question my daughter asked when this crap was on air was “Where’s Phil Collins?” This is career destroying stuff for everyone involved. Pray that it just blows away. Pray. This is god awful. What a way to start a relationship with a new agency, Cadbury’s. Serving them a very bitter poison chalice.
does anyone really think Saatchis would suggest changing this masterpiece?
_rt
7:47, you may have started something.
If I was (still) at Saatchis, I’d be recommending to Cadbury’s an interactive campaign, asking consumers to do their own re-mix/mashup using a track of their choice, with successful/interesting/amusing versions run on TV or on some website.
Just a thought from an old silverback.
There’s mileage in the monkey yet! The public get the running gag.Why not the industry?
this is a shocker…
saatchi’s unfortunately are desperate to please a new client…i used to work there in the nobby days…but it’s clear that a heavy from cadbury uk flew in and said ‘do this’….saatchi’s with new management, just bent over and produced this piece of dribble…as many of the bloggers have posted, there are at least 20 far better mash ups of the gorilla, cadbury would have been better using one of these cuts and just paying royalties…
unfortunately this will be the turkey of the year for the industry..
OMG!!! I was right all along!!!! This ad simply just sucks!. It has always sucked!.
Cuz guess what? I makes no sense. It has never made sense. I pretended i liked it like the rest of my grungie indie friends. But now i can see the light!.
Let’s see. It’s not funny, it’s not scary, its not meaningful. There’s no campaign-ability to it, there’s nothing insightful. At the end of the Day it WAS Just a Man in a VERY EXPENSIVE MONKEY SUIT Playing the drums. HA HA HA HA! Ah…. (cough cough). Maybe be Phil Collins is the Key!! Maybe PHIL COLLINS CAN TAKE US OUT OF THE GFC AND INTO THE PROMISE LANDS.
Do YOUR bit for society. Get the TARZAN soundtrack and start selling those mobile plans, you ad-making-machine you.
And for those of you that want to hit me with the numbers telling me how well they have done in sales. Guess What? I don’t care. George Bush got elected twice. That’s it my purpose on earth is done, now I can go in peace.
The Bonnie Tyler song has relevance to chocolate.
There was probably one mandatory from the client for the choice of song, and that was ‘It has to be Australian.’
They could’ve used the White Stripes. But a fuckin monkey drums better than she does.
This must, must have been the client’s idea.
Or somebody who has no idea of sync.
Whether you like the Farnham song or not is irrelevant. The fact is it doesn’t work with this visual.
I know this is long dead but can’t believe nobody pointed out the ultimate faux pas here. There are no drums on the Farnham original, it’s a drum machine.