guest post by mikl-em
“FlamZ” Miller High Life commercial by Errol Morris
“King Kong” Miller High Life commercial by Errol Morris
“Hackers” Cisco commercial by Errol Morris
So everybody knows Errol Morris, right? The guy who directed A Thin Blue Line? Who won a 2004 Best Documentary Oscar for The Fog of War and whose most recent film is Standard Operating Procedure (2008)?
What is lesser known about this ground-breaking documentary director is that he is a prolific creator of ads for everything from Adidas to Volkswagon. These ads are for both intellectual / savvy faves (PBS and MoveOn.org) as well as very very corporate clients (Nike and Citibank). Many of these ads can be seen on a gallery on his site.
There are well over 200 ads up on the site including about 50 for Citibank and no less than 80 for Miller High Life.
Of course the two ad campaigns that he may be best known for are the Apple “Switch” campaign and the 2004 MoveOn.org political ads–a fascinating New Yorker article covers these ads and the history of presidential tv advertising–where ordinary citizens talked about switching from Bush to John Kerry.
Examples below show a couple Apple Switch-ers of note…
“Mark Frauenfelder” Apple commercial by Errol Morris
“DJ Qbert” Apple commercial by Errol Morris
Unfortunately ads on Morris’ site are not set up as embedable, so there are some ads I can’t find elsewhere, and you’ll just have to click through to see the creepy Cisco VPN commercial with an anonymous taxidermy collector, or
the cartwheeling rooftop wedding party drunk on Southern Comfort (or the weird Soco ad in a Bomb Shelter (or the senior citizen dance party (or the strip poker one))) (”Southern Comfort: between friends” is the tagline but why not just say “booze breaks the ice”?), or the Adidas ad about a guy eating a lot.
Here are a few more great Miller High Life (the Champagne of Beers) ads that I couldn’t resist sharing….
“Grandma” Miller High Life commercial by Errol Morris
“Fish Flavor” Miller High Life commercial by Errol Morris
“Casanova” Miller High Life commercial by Errol Morris
And finally a 50’s High Life commercial, just for contrast…
Here Are A Few Related Posts You Might Enjoy:
- 2008 Super Bowl XLII Commercials
- The New Ask.com TV Commercials Are Super Creepy
- Mr. T & William Shatner Featured in World of Warcraft Commercials
- Muppets Star In a Series of Ultra Violent Wilkins Coffee TV Commercials (1957-1961)
- Japandering, Parodies of Japanese TV Commercials
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Great commercials. I loved the fish & beer comm.
Excellent montage, I raise a cold one to the man behind the high life and other commercials with a bit of an edge. Have I gone mental though, or is the 50s commercial actually strangely compelling and cool?
He also directed one of my top ten movies: “Fast Cheap and Out of Control!”
Nothing like a good beer commercial to streach creative limits.
Tony
http://www.bestradiocommercials.com