Global Absolut campaign imagines end of life behind screens

Absolut is launching an absolutely huge global campaign, by BBH Singapore, that will run in a great many markets: the UK, China, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Ireland, Netherlands, Romania, Thailand, Morocco, Serbia, Hong Kong and South Africa starting this week, and rolling out next year to Brazil, Mexico, South Korea, the Persian Gulf, SSA, Chile, Greece, Croatia, Latvia and Colombia.

The work looks to be easily up to the task of reaching such a massive audience. In the before times, Ad Nut got tired of work that urged people to put down their devices and make connections IRL. The admonition, while well meaning, became trite and overdone. Lazy marketing.

But now, as people in many areas are just starting to enjoy the freedom to see actual humans that they don't live with—without a screen mediating the interaction—the message has a new resonance. The animation and the music and the climactic transition to warm, live-action humans in the above film...it all works. The outdoor ads (below) complement it perfectly. The drinks look good too.

Like any big global campaign, great care has been taken to broaden appeal by including an array of well-knowns, which in this case means American actor Tessa Thompson, British musician MNEK, online gaming star Ricki Ortiz, and Taiwanese singer Jolin Tsai.

The #TogetherIRL campaign is the first instance of a new brand platform for Absolut, called 'It's in our spirit', which Ad Nut also likes because Ad Nut will never tire of double-meaning wordplay.

CREDITS

The Absolut Company
VP Marketing: Charl Bassil
Chief Creative Officer: Tad Greenough
Head of Brand Creative: Sina Neubrandt
Marketing Manager: Filip Kiisk
Senior Brand Manager: Ylva Lundberg
Brand Managers: Maxime Henain, Oscar Danielsson, Hedda Helgesen

BBH
Global Leadership: Joakim (jab) Borgstrom, Adam Arnold
Singapore Leadership: Sascha Kuntze, Sid Tuli
Creative Directors: Gaston Soto, Nikhil Panjwani
Creatives: Stephanie Gwee, Sid Lim, Avril Chua
Business Leadership: Lynette Chua, Grace Lee, Alicia Tiong, Paisley Wright, Fran Suffling, Marina Atanassova, Lauren Gillies
Strategy: Lilli English, Faraaz Marghoob, Aarohi Dhir
Production: Wendi Chong, Wendi Chong, Wendi Chong
Black Sheep Studio: Eddie Jackson, Sally Liu, Eva Loo, Sok Wah Leow, Lee Adamson, Christopher Leow, Pang Wei Fong, Tammy Quah

PSYOP
Directors: Todd Mueller and Kylie Matulick
Producers: Justin Booth-Clibborn, Joe Maggiore, My Linh Truong, Noah Goldsmith, Andrea Panda, Michael Schlenker

Stink
Andrew Levene, Fran Thompson, Kelly Brown

The Marketing Arm
Mick Carter (Manchester), Sorcha Collister (London), Valerie Holmes (Chicago), Maggie Qu (Shanghai), David Wales (Dallas)

Photographers
GL Askew II, Conor McDonnell, Sean Marc Lee

Production Partners
Bauie Productions (LA), Butter Music + Sound (LA), Episode Films (Taipei), Fuse Adventures in Audio (Singapore), Illusion CGI Studio (Bangkok)

Ad Nut is a surprisingly literate woodland creature that for unknown reasons has an unhealthy obsession with advertising. Ad Nut gathers ads from all over Asia and the world for your viewing pleasure, because Ad Nut loves you. You can also check out Ad Nut's Advertising Hall of Fame, or read about Ad Nut's strange obsession with 'murderous beasts'.