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Kelly Weedon Shute

Art director: Dom Martin

Copywriter: Nick O’Bryan-Tear

Arguably the best cigarette campaign ever created was for Benson & Hedges. Its surreal imagery evolved as a result of the very restrictions that were designed to cramp its style. It’s a great example of turning a difficult situation to your advantage.

The opportunity exists to pull off the same trick with advertising drink on television. You can’t associate your product with youth, glamour, success, sexiness or sporting prowess. You have to get around these restrictions without seeming to flout them. What do you do?

The commercial shows tramps, down and outs, bums repeatedly intercut with a gloriously-lit bottle of Mustang. A groovy quirky Eddie Harris blues track lifts the tone of the commercial throughout. Finally a voiceover says simply: “Mustang Bourbon. Don’t get to like it too much.”

Not only have we deftly avoided the clutches of the Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre, we have also produced a

no-bullshit, matter of fact approach for an 18 to 30-year-old

audience bored rigid with irrelevant, glossy, “you’ve arrived” lifestyle brand values.

It’s real, it’s sharp, and it will get the sort of press coverage that doubles an advertiser’s ad spend.