Spike Jonze has come along way from his skateboard video days. He’s done it all from music videos for top artists (Beastie Boys, REM, Fatboy Slim, Tenacious D and more) to top major big screen releases – Adaptation, Being John Malkovich, Three Kings and Jackass 1&2. Not many though know that he’s done a whole host of commercials as well. (IMDb Profile)
Every single ad he’s worked on has had that distinctive Jonze style to them, a certain uneasiness to it. We could just put this out as a “everyone’s a winner” but award season is coming up so there does have to be a #1, so lets get right into it and start off with the ads that didn’t quite make it, but need a mention.
Honorable Mentions
Miller Auditions – Penguin (Other Miller Audition Ads): The Animal Audition ads were a clever and funny way for Miller to take a pot shot at Budweiser by using their animals to audition for a parts in a Miller ad. All are superbly done.
Levi’s Commercial – Tainted Love: Typical Jonze black humor to it, but it just doesn’t have that killer edge.
#5 Adidas
The only Jonze Ad on the list that’s had any airtime worldwide. To me it feels like Spike’s taken certain elements from Being John Malkovitch. But hey, I’ve been wrong before.
Visualy it’s a masterpiece but sadly this little number loses on annoyance.
Music: Composed by Squeak E. Clean and featuring Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (via).
#4 GAP – Pardon Our Dust
The tagline read: “Pardon our dust, the all-new GAP is coming.” It only ran for a couple of months in a few cities around the States, those with GAP stores going through renovation (link). It’s a real pity, it’s a classic which deserved to be drilled into those lucky city resident’s skulls, rerun after rerun.
#3 Buddy Lee Dungarees – Hall Of Mirrors
Buddy Lee Dungarees commercials played off the Buddy Movie roles. Think Bad Boys, with Lawrence swapped out with the Buddy Lee Mascot Baby.
There were a number of Buddy Lee commercials, but none of them stood out as much as the Hall of Mirrors. It never would have made it to #3 if it never had “the X factor”, X = Y and Y = Fuckin’ Hilarious. You do the math.
#2 Nike Y2K Jogger
Remember the Y2K scare? I remember filling the bath in case the world ran dry when the clock struck the witching hour and eating enough three bean salads for days after to give the Hindenburg flight.
In this Jonze creation the ad plays off of what most feared. It involves a jogger who wakes up on New Years Day 2000 and goes for a casual run amongst absolute chaos, with the tag line firmly drilled home – Just Do It.
Visually this Ad is a treat and fully deserves it’s position at #2. Just watch it.
#1: Ikea Lamp
It’s the ad that almost made the Ikea Brand cool again. It went on to win the best TV commercial for four straight years at the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival notably tearing the famous Honda Cog commercial a new one. Well not really, Honda came second for a year or two.
A tragic tale of a Ikea lamp that gets discarded and thrown out on the street with the trash. Theres a strange unnerving twist to the tale, I would say “almost Shyamalan like” but I know I’d be beaten with an ugly stick, so I won’t.
So that’s it, the Ikea commercial makes it #1 on the Top 5 Spike Jonze Produced Commercials list.
Disclaimer: This post was written and published by me for ChumpStyle in 2007, I’ve updated it and have posted it here so it can live on.
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