VCCP Unlocks the World for Avis

When rental car service client Avis decided that they wanted to enter the TV market and create their first ever TV commercial for the EMEA region, VCCP's challenge was to breathe some creative life into a category that had been stagnant for some time. 

Here, art director Veryan Prigg [below left] and copywriter Kieran Knight [below right], discuss the challenges they faced with the caign and why they looked back to move forward.

Tell us about the brief from the client; what did they want to achieve with this caign?

Avis hasn’t advertised on television in the UK before and the brand hadn’t launched an ATL caign for over 50 years, and in this time the car rental category has lost its former glamour.

Avis came to us with a brief to break out of this negatively perceived category and to make their brand promise of ‘We try harder’ as relevant in 2014 as it was in the 1960s. We thought that was a challenge worth undertaking.

Why has Avis decided that now is a good time to enter TV advertising?

After the success of the ‘We try harder’ caign in the 1960’s, Avis felt that it was time to generate awareness of their brand once again. Back then print was the preferred medium of choice if you wanted to make a big advertising splash. Today, television has become the channel of choice to generate a considerable amount of awareness.

It felt like the right medium to land that sense of a brand that’s back after such a long hiatus. However, Avis were also aware that a fully integrated caign would be the key to effectiveness, so that’s why the caign works across not just television, but press and digital as well.

Did you immediately know how you wanted to tackle the project and what the concept should be?

I don’t think you can get a much better project than this, so we immediately wanted to tackle it, although coming up with the concept took a little longer. There was huge expectation from everyone involved, as Avis hadn’t created an EMEA caign for over fifty years.  

We wanted to showcase the cars, but the difficulty was to steer away from the ten-a-penny, clichéd car commercial where we watch a car tackle the twist and turns of the South African coast. It’s why we decided to park the cars, and have just a single driving shot at the very end.

Car hire is often seen as functional more than fun or exciting; was that why it was important to showcase a whole range of car makes and models?

Indeed, car hire is often seen as functional, as one of the chores you must organise before you can start your holiday. We all felt this needed to change, because the reality is that car hire can open up a whole world of possibiltiies for people.

This is why our caign centers on ‘the experience’ through a core thought of ‘Unlock the world’. Put simply, it’s about demonstrating all the amazing places you can unlock, and the amazing models you can unlock them in, with Avis.

What did director Marcus Soderlund bring to the project and why was he the best choice?

Sensibility. There’s something calm, quiet and ethereal that Scandinavian directors bring. Look at how he shot the recent McLaren spot, a simple pan, no trickery, no special effects, just the story beautifully told and beautifully framed.

We needed that. Cars against stunning backdrops, caught delicately. His idea to shoot on a black and white camera (not just turn off the colour) was for us, bold. His treatment was inspirational and precise. Some of his inspiring reference from his boards made it into camera, pixel for pixel, and other scenes formed organically.

And why was Chile the best place to shoot the spot?

It’s the whole world in one country. Picturesque town squares that mirror ones in France or Spain. Rugged, open beaches that echo the Cornish coast. Not forgetting of course, spectacular roads that wind through mountains at 3500 metres.

As Marcus said of the epic end shot: “We chose this road in the Andes, Embalse El Yeso, because we wanted an amazing landscape that could give a sense of limitlessness, and create the kind of scale that could communicate unlocking the world. El Yeso gives that sense of epic scale; the terrain is like something out of Star Wars”.

What was the hardest part of the whole creative/production process?

The edit. It’s a simple idea where car indicators light up, as our ‘hero’ unlocks the world with his key fob. In some ways the simplicity of the concept made it more difficult. Should we tell this in just three scenes? It would work, but we’d sacrifice the scale of the piece.

We had to see, to experiment, to test and test again. Tough, but in the end we believe we hit the right balance in the edit.

Also, getting 15 llamas to behave in front of camera.

Why did you feel this choice of music track was right and how long did it take to get to this choice?

I’m not sure how long it took, but we searched long and hard through most genres before we settled on the piece, from “The hundred best driving classics-Volume 1, 2, 3”, to a symphony by Penderecki.

It’s definitely a grower, and for us that was a good thing; the first time people heard it they weren’t sure, the second time they thought ‘maybe’, but then they found themselves unable to stop humming it for days.

It’s a track which is not only inherently joyful, but also very nostalgic. It’s definitely an unexpected choice but we felt that the contrast between the visuals and the music worked beautifully.