I heart the Call of Duty: Black Ops live action advert.
The ad, developed by Chiatt Day/???, is a study in advertising perfection. First, there’s the music, matching one of the greatest rock ‘n roll songs - the Rolling Stones “Gimme Shelter” - to the message. about as perfect as a piece of production as you’ll ever see on television. Set to one of the greatest rock ‘n roll songs ever - For starters, there’s Kobe Bryant and Jimmy Kimmel cameos. Yes, it’s fun to watch Jimmy breathlessly rounding a corner, manhandling a grenade launcher. the special effected and explosions rock.
But I’m more intrigued by how the ad consciously plays against type, reaching out to audiences far beyond young men.
There’s been some chatter about the middle school girls featured in ad. She’s perfect. She’s the girl we all remember in seventh grade - soft and Rubensque, cherubic face with glasses - a perfect target for bullying by the mean boys. Well, in this advert, she totes a big gun, and you can see the adrenaline pump through her veins. Any number of the mean boys are probably standing in for the bad guys here.
What audiences may have missed - because blink! and it’s gone - is a few seconds of genius. Watch closely in the embed below for the middle school girl and a young woman with a beret atop long curly hair, dressed in a sleeveless tank and a gauzy blue, tie-dyed skirt.
Toting AK-47’s (?) with ease, they stalk a building and approach a cement bunker. The hippie woman approaches the door and kicks it in. There’s a brief close-up of her foot as it connects. And what’s she wearing? Birkenstocks. Birkenstocks! The embodiment of all things new age/crunchy granola.
Seriously genius.
The ad ends with this tag line: “There’s a soldier in all of us.”
http://adage.com/article?article_id=146906
Published reports says actual gamers were cast for the roles. So - who are these women and why haven’t they been invited to guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live?
