Umbrella spot has it covered
ADVERTISING | Fallon spot for reclaimed Travelers brand a stunning success
It's been a tough few years for the venerable ad agency Fallon/Minneapolis. A steady turnover in chief creative officers and significant client defections left the agency near death until Saatchi & Saatchi's Kevin Roberts stepped in last year and finagled an arrangement that made Fallon a sort of subsidiary of S & S.
We were suspicious of that deal when it first materialized, and we still are. But whatever Roberts is up to in his grab for more power and control over more agencies, it's nonetheless wonderfully reassuring to report the folks in Fallon's Minneapolis headquarters seem not to have entirely lost their feel for what is truly big and beautiful in advertising.
PHOTO GALLERY
Travelers' 'Delivery' ad
And believe us when we say there isn't a lot left in advertising that is both big and beautiful.
In this instance, we're talking about the marvelously epic spot called "Delivery" that Fallon produced for client Travelers, the insurance behemoth that reclaimed its red umbrella icon from financial giant Citigroup more than a year ago. To drive home the message about the iconic umbrella reclamation and position Travelers as a benevolent company, Fallon created an amusingly sweet story-driven commercial featuring a courtly gentleman bearing a 35-foot-tall red umbrella.
The man is clearly on a journey somewhere, but that is not what compels our attention in "Delivery." Rather, it's the man's seemingly serendipitous encounters that beguile us as he is seen traveling who knows where. First there is the stranded circus troupe he happens upon -- a colorfully motley lot of oddballs who need to cross a river to get to their circus tent. The gentleman on a journey magically transforms his umbrella into a boat, and the performers get where they need to go. Mission accomplished, our umbrella bearer then runs into two youngsters with broken bikes who can't get home. No problem. Suddenly the umbrella takes to the skies like a hot-air balloon to transport the kids.
After carrying out his good deeds, the gentleman finally arrives at the home base of a new Travelers' client where he and his giant umbrella are last seen sitting atop the structure surveying a slew of red umbrellas protectively perched atop other buildings all around town.
Kudos to director Rupert Sanders who has done a simply splendid job of shooting the whimsical imagery throughout "Delivery." Much credit for the spot's success also must go to the team who handled "Delivery's" joyous and jaunty musical underscoring. Robert Miller's original composition performed by members of the New York Philharmonic immediately lifts up viewers and keeps them gloriously uplifted throughout.
We have but one qualm. We wish Fallon would drop the drab "In synch" Travelers tagline and replace it with the single line of copy that appears in "Delivery," which is "there when you need it." That, to us, seems a much spiffier and more apt line.
We always get a kick out of reading the quarterly financial reports for the Paris-based Publicis Groupe, the parent agency conglomerate of Chicago's Leo Burnett. Among the fun things Publicis Groupe includes in its financial accounting is a list of new clients brought in during the quarter among its many and varied agency holdings.
In one of these reports a while ago, for instance, we learned the stunning news Burnett had picked up the Finnish Newspaper Association account. We're not sure if the organization is still a client overseas, but it was fun to learn the newspaper group was deemed an important piece of new business at the time.
The Publicis Groupe financial report for the first quarter of 2008 isn't likely to bring smiles to the faces of folks at Burnett's principal office here in Chicago. Nor, we suspect, will it be a source of good cheer to Publicis Groupe CEO Maurice Levy, at least in regards to Burnett's Chicago operation. Per the report, Burnett's Chicago office picked up no first-quarter new business wins worthy of note. Indeed, putting aside the addition of more GM business last year, major new clients have been in painfully short supply at the agency for several years now. In fact, management restructurings have been far more prevalent than new clients.
Burnett's low grade of C- in trade magazine Adweek's annual agency report cards out this week won't help Burnett leader Rich Stoddart either in his efforts to pull in new clients. It's surely going to take more than the dress code memo prank that grabbed everyone's attention last week to put Burnett back on track. Let's hope management has -- or will soon have -- a game plan that can get results.
