shots 20th: 2009 - Hold your positions

Closing the digital decade with a cinematic classic that swept the board of industry prizes, Philips Carousel will prove a hard act to beat as one of its creators, DDB’s Neil Dawson, reveals to Danny Edwards

In the decade that gave birth to truly digital campaigns what better way to end than with one of cyberspace’s most innovative, influential and awarded pieces of work – Philips Carousel. Like Sony before Fallon and Fuglsig, Philips was another vast, mostly faceless electronics giant. But Philips wanted to up its creative game and its agency, DDB, was tasked with delivering the goods.

Neil Dawson was brought in as chief creative officer of the Philips brand worldwide in 2007 and began the creative ascent as soon as he could. “The brief from Philips was a clear one,” states Dawson. “Challenge us. We want change.”

And change was certainly what they got.

The metamorphosis began in earnest with an unusual campaign for Philips’ Satinelle Ice Epilator that focused on an American transsexual called Karis and his leg-hair removal process. Then there was DJ Baby for a Philips baby monitor, and Strong Teeth for the Sonicare electric toothbrush; all interesting, creative and crucially, hitherto un-Philips commercials.

Then DDB and Philips really struck gold with Carousel.

The internet film was created to launch a new Philips invention; the Cinema 21:9 television. “The challenge,” explains Dawson, “was to demonstrate an oft-claimed position of the best cinematic experience in a new and different way.”

The original idea was conceived at DDB’s digital division in Amsterdam, Tribal DDB, and was initially slated to be part of a wider campaign before that now infamous ad-slayer, the global economic downturn, got involved. But the part of the campaign devised by Tribal remained on the table. “I instantly liked the long tracking shot concept,” says Dawson. “I’m a big Robert Altman fan and thought it was very cinematic. Initially the concept wasn’t a heist movie, that came later, but the simple structure was clear from the start. Stink Digital then brilliantly took the script to the next level.”

And the next level was higher, possibly, than even Dawson and Philips could have imagined. Adam Berg from Stink Digital London came on board as director and the rest, as they say, is hysteria. The Carousel film features what looks like one long tracking shot that snakes through a hospital as cops battle it out with robbers dressed in clown outfits. Adopting the ‘bullet time’ style of filming which freezes the action as the camera pans around, it’s made even more remarkable when you click on the behind-the-scenes links on the Carousel site to see that much of the VFX simply entailed people standing very, very still.

Hugely successful both critically and commercially and hugely cinematic, Carousel went on to pick up the 2009 Film Grand Prix in Cannes along with a shed-load of other awards through the year. The lure of watching the film brought a huge amount of people to the Carousel site which in turn gave them more content to explore as well as telling them about the Philips Cinema 21:9 television. The average visitor to the website spent five minutes exploring the films and other content on offer.

“I don’t think you can ever predict what the level of response to something will be,” says Dawson. “Like the screenwriter William Goldman said of predicting a hit in Hollywood, ‘nobody knows anything’.

But we knew we had a great product, a simple concept and an amazing execution which we felt would resonate with consumers.”

How to follow such a huge success? That is something Dawson and Philips are working on at the moment and which could be one of 2010’s big hitters. “We have been working on a follow up which, of course, is a challenge,” laughs Dawson, “but we were hard on ourselves. We knew we had to reinvent if we wanted to be as surprising again; there would be no Carousel II.” In fact, by the time you read this you may already know a little bit about what’s not Carousel II, and come the next issue of shots, you’ll know a whole lot more.

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