Hollywood legend Christopher Walken in BMW's new Super Bowl ad.
Hollywood legend Christopher Walken in BMW's new Super Bowl ad.
A New Zealand advertising creative is behind one of this year’s biggest Super Bowl ads. He outlines some of the secrets of the $11.3m spot. Shayne Currie reports.
By now, many of us know that the Super Bowl is really a global showcase of advertising creativity and expression,interrupted by a game of football. That, and regular cutaway crowd shots to the world’s biggest pop star, Taylor Swift, whose boyfriend Travis Kelce lines up for the Kansas City Chiefs against the San Francisco 49ers today.
More than 50 advertisers - from Apple, Uber Eats and M&Ms to car manufacturers, telcos and insurance companies - have each spent an estimated US$7 million ($11.3m) for a 30-second slot for Super Bowl, which kicks off at 12.30pm (NZT) on Monday afternoon.
This year, the ads are once again heavy on humour and celebrities, including David and Victoria Beckham, Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer (for Uber Eats), Arnold Schwarzenegger (for State Farm), Jason Momoa (for T-Mobile) and sporting legends Lionel Messi (for Michelob Ultra beer) and Tom Brady (for BetMGM).
And New Zealander Clemens Zlami has played a leading role as the creative for the BMW i5 electric car ad, starring Christopher Walken and Usher (who is also the headline act for the famous Super Bowl half-time show).
The ad Talkin’ like Walken - one of many that have already been released on YouTube, part of the critical strategy to build up interest ahead of its official screening - plays to A-lister Walken’s unique accent, and how so many people imitate him.
WATCH THE BMW AD HERE:
Zlami is one of only a select few Kiwis involved in making a Super Bowl ad and spoke to Media Insider from Lake Tahoe, where he’s taken a few days out following a hectic eight months.
Zlami, 36, a creative at Goodby Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco for the past five and a half years - he was previously with DDB and Colenso in Auckland - gave some fascinating insight into the Super Bowl project, which came as GS&P successfully retained BMW following a competitive pitch.
“We got the Super Bowl brief in June or July and I’ve been working on it since then. We went through easily a hundred different scripts and concepts.”
New Zealand advertising creative Clemens Zlami, of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners.
He said he and a small GS&P team flew to Munich - home of BMW’s global HQ - in October, to pitch two of the top ideas.
“Lo and behold, neither of those were the ones that actually got made,” he says, revealing one actor had a scheduling conflict with a film and another “kind of went hardball”, eventually turning up in another Super Bowl ad.
“We went back to the drawing board and pulled up this one. Walken said yes and we went off to the races.”
As well as his distinctive cadence (’cor-fee’ for coffee), Walken, 80 - an Academy Award winner with a shopping list of film credits including The Deer Hunter and Pulp Fiction - was also a unique and brilliant talent by all accounts.
“He doesn’t have the internet or a phone so we had to Fedex him the scripts and things like that to review,” says Zlami. “It was amazing, it was a really fun project - he’s really not what you’d expect from Hollywood.”
As well as Walken and Usher, the ad also features Emily in Paris actress Ashley Park and was shot over a weekend in early December.
Zlami and producer Daniel Chang then flew to Connecticut three weeks ago for an ADR post-production session with Walken - the usual process of re-recording an actor’s dialogue.
Clemens Zlami (right) with Christopher Walken (centre) and producer Daniel Chang.
“It was a lot of fun and he brought a lot to the table,” says Zlami.
In one scene, Walken whistles as he strolls into a restaurant. The problem is that he struggles to whistle in real life. What you hear in the ad is actually the whistle of one of the GS&P team.
AP reported this week: “In an increasingly fractured and polarised media environment - and with fewer people watching live TV - the Super Bowl is an anomaly. The big game’s viewership has actually increased, with a record 115.1 million people tuning in last year.
“Almost as an escape from the divisive US presidential election and conflicts deepening around the world, most Super Bowl advertisers appear to be doubling down on flights of fantasy or light humour, often with a dose of nostalgia and a lot of mini-reunions of TV characters.”
“Serious is out,” Virginia University Darden School of Business marketing professor Kimberly Whitler told AP. “Marketers have figured out entertainment, enjoyment and escapism is the name of the ad game.”
That’s certainly come through in Zlami and GS&Ps work for BMW. He’s had a few pinch-me moments in the past eight months.
“It’s certainly the biggest ad [I’ve done] – about as big as you can go in the creative space. I really like it. I’m very happy with where we ended up.”
He didn’t get too fazed, despite the obvious pressure.
“It’s funny, I kept having to remind myself that it’s the same as everything else. I’ve done so many ads for BMW I know the process is exactly the same but it’s also very different.
“Every single pixel on that screen, every decision, every creative choice is under so much more scrutiny. It’s a much more intense process with a lot more opinions. The CEOs and people like that who normally wouldn’t be anywhere near that, they’re more involved because there’s so much expense involved. They want to make sure that it’s exactly what they want.”
I asked him if he was referring to his own CEO, or BMW’s.
“Both!” he laughed.
Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand’s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor and has a small shareholding in NZME.
