Watching the new Cadbury Fair Trade spot over the weekend reminded of a rather curious incident some weeks ago. On waiting for a friend near their HQ I overhead the following…
P1: Right then guys, new brief from Cadburys to celebrate their use of Fair Trade cocoa beans. They’re looking for something gritty, dark, disturbingly close to the bone… hahah, only joking. Let’s think life affirming, optimistic and nauseatingly positive. Any ideas?
P2: Hmm, where the beans from?
P1: Think Ivory Coast, Ghana…
P3: Underdeveloped then.
P1: Erm, yes
P2: Okay, okay – so we’re celebrating how the use of Fair Trade cocoa beans improves the lives of producers in Africa. Let’s make a song and dance over it then.. hah
P3: I like it
P1: What?
P3: Song and dance. Think Africa, think black people, think great rhythms, great dancing..
P2: And, and, hysterical amounts of laughter and inane grinning.
P3: Yes! Just like a Bob Sinclair video, or travelling dancing troupes on Blue Peter. Always smiling, singing, dancing… happy little buggers.
P1: Ok, ok.. I’m getting optimistic, life affirming, as if looking at life through a rainbow coloured filter. This is good guys, this is us. But where’s the touch of absurdity. You know, that spark, that…
P2: Witchcraft!
P1: Hang on, that’s all a bit dark and unseemly.
P2: No, no… witchcraft in the good sense. Glitter and fireworks and pretty colours..
P3: Exploding from the limbs of gyrating people in a state of permanent exstasy!
P2: Except it’s a Monday afternoon, and they’re just dancing, and grinning, and singing not for little old Jonny’s Birthday. No, no.. just for the hell of it!
P3: God, those guys are crazy.
P1: Hmm, this all feels mildly racist, doesn’t it? Like Minstrals, or those old Lilt adverts.
P3: No, no, not at all. We’re celebrating the grit and strength of the African people, who even in adversity always find a time and place to party. It’s what they do best, don’t you know.
(Murmurs of agreement)
P1: Ok, ok, but we’re still missing something. Something people can copy. We have kinda built an agency off that..
P2: Air drumming? No, no.. done that.
P3: Dancing?
P2: No, no, these guys are black, remember. We’d have middle class kids from the home counties looking like epileptic robots. Absurd. We bloody struggled with Whigfield, for God’s sake. Let’s stick with face movements – that worked last time.
P3: Tounge flicking? Ear waggling? Winking?
(Deathly, prolonged silence)
P2: Well… how about all of them?
P3/P1: Go on..
P2: We create a huge virtual 3D head which looks like a cross between a tribal mask and a vodoo doll
P1: Erm…
P2: And it, and it… spins around for no apparent reason while everyone dances, and grins, and looks just bloody happy while fireworks shoot from their fingers
P3: Fuck, this is bigger than trucks!
P2: And then, then, cocoa beans start shooting from the head as it winks, squints, pull it’s own ear off, showering the townsfolk in a symbolic scent of success… coca beans which are, are, are..
P3: Grinning!
P2: Yes! Grinning cocoa beans shooting off in all directions from this great oversized tribal head, infecting people with absurd amounts of happiness!
P3: Shitting hell, I can already see YouTube filled with people making absurd facial expressions while their mates pour bowls of cocoa pops over their heads. It’s going to be bigger than eyebrows!
P1: I’m going to lie down
And then my mate turned up, and I had to leave. Knowing what I do know, I would have asked to hang about a bit longer… being privy to such a stream of creative brilliance.