Here's to you, Ahab (Guinness - Horses and surfers)

Member Name: MykReeve

Product:	Guinness - Horses and surfers
Date:	30/08/00 (4849 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Impressive to look at, very slick presentation, good use of music

Disadvantages: Not very original, it's just an advert

I've only just noticed that dooyoo has a category for TV Adverts, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to throw in my two cents, since it affords me the opportunity to criticise that most banal of the visual media, the advertisement.

Having said that, there is occasionally the odd surprise which entertains and impresses, in addition to forcing a corporate logo into my subconscious. The Guinness "Horses and Surfers" ad was certainly one of them.

The advertisement opens with a shot of a surfer's face, with his eyes pointing in different directions.
The first line of monologue; "He waits. That's what he does. And I'll tell you what: tick followed tock followed tick followed tock followed tick...", accompanies a nine second shot of the man's face, before the harsh bassline of Leftfield's 'Phat Planet' kicks in. The camera cuts to show the surfer and three others rushing toward the sea.

In the following 51 seconds, we are shown forty-eight frenetically cut shots of the four surfers fighting against a mighty wave - the wave that they've waited for all their lives. Upon this wave, we see a line of Lippizaner stallions composited by computer into the froth, a scene inspired by a painting by Delacroix.

We see each of the surfers thrown from their boards, but only one man conquers it. The final moment of the advertisement is gloriously silent, in stark contrast to the booming Leftfield rhythm, as the other surfers rush over to congratulate the conquering hero.

The monologue at the beginning and end of the advert is inspired by several works - James Joyce's 'The Portrat of the Artist as a Young Man', Dylan Thomas's 'Under Milk Wood' and Herman Melville's 'Moby Dick'. Many incorrectly attribute the text to 'Moby Dick' because of the "Here's to you, Ahab" line.

The surfers were cast by the advert's d
irector, Jonathan Glazer, from authentic surfers from Polynesia.

Certainly, to look at, the advertisement is undeniably impressive, featuring some impressive effects, especially in the composite of the horses with the surf of the waves. The advert is also very well cut - it's impressive to see how well the very rapid cuts work, alongside the long and lingering shot of a single subject at the beginning of the advert.

But overwhelmingly, the ad is pretty hollow. It is, after all, just an advert aimed at making you think about a product. However, even in this regard, I'm not sure it succeeds. The connection to the product is tenuous at best - you have to wait for a pint of Guinness to settle, much as the Polynesian surfers have had to wait many years for this perfect wave. At the time that the advert first appeared on our screens, I'm pretty sure that when people talked about it, they couldn't even remember what the product was. It was only the subsequent saturation repetition of the advert that made people remember it. (Actually, now I think about it, the advert is in black and white, much as the drink is black with a white head... I suppose that's another connection to the product).

I definitely applaud the degree of thought and design that's gone into the advert, but personally I'm quite sick of it now. I think this is mainly because the advert was shown so very much, but also because I was really never that inspired by the idea. Obviously, I appreciate that this is merely personal taste, but I didn't feel that the idea was really that original, nor that compelling. The rapid cutting and stark imagery seemed deliberately targetted at attracting the viewer's attention, and this triggered my natural response to rebel, and ignore it...

The advert was voted the best advertisement of all time by readers of the Sunday Times and Channel 4 viewers in a poll in early 2000. One Sunday Times critic said it
was "the most beautiful and powerful piece of film on our screens", and the advertising magazine Campaign orgasmed that the ad was "the most gloriously beautiful ad. Ever".

[Wow, who'd have thought I could have written this much on an advert!]

Summary: