New York's hottest club is Nocturnal Awakening. Located in an abandoned warehouse, this club has everything: Tear gas. Glitter showers. Screeching owls. Ice-filled pianos. Watermelons being hurled at industrial-sized fans. A rhyming Grace Jones look-alike reciting. Vodka.
OK, so "Nocturnal Awakening" is actually the latest spot from Smirnoff and JWT New York—not a creation of Saturday Night Live's resident nightlife expert, Stefon. But it sure comes close. "The nocturnal awakening is about to begin," begins the spot's narrator (who really does appear to be a Grace Jones impersonator, for the record) before launching into a nursery-rhyme-cum-nightlife manifesto imploring "the creators, the curious, the yearners" (who appear to be very attractive hipster types with a thing for body paint and glitter) to "let others dream, asleep, in their bed; we'll stay awake and sleep when we're dead." Also, to drink a lot of vodka.
As overblown as the spot may be, it has some pretty stunning images. The red silk flower, the bursting fruit, the cloud of crimson smoke all make a strong visual impact; it's just too bad they're interspersed with things like a wide-eyed owl (a "night owl"? Really?) or a piano doubling as a cooler (they're probably ruining a perfectly good instrument).
But maybe it all makes sense at 4 o'clock in the morning, when you're on your ninth vodka-and-smashed-watermelon.
CREDITS
Client: Smirnoff
Agency: JWT, New York
Executive Creative Director: Ben James
Art Director: Eric Larkin
Copywriters: Alexis Reid, Visha Nguyen
Global Planner: Yusuf Chuku
Head of Production: Sergio Lopez
Senior Producers: Angela Buck, Holly Otto
Project Managers: Joe Watana, Terea Shaffer
Global Business Director: Amy Frisch
Global Account Director: Nicole Bray
Account Associate: Tyler Harris
Chief Creative Officer, North America: Jeff Benjamin
Co-Chief Creative Officers, New York: Ryan Kutscher, Matt MacDonald
Client Team: Simon Burch, SVP, Global Brand Director; Michelle Klein, VP, Smirnoff Global Marketing, Communications and Digital
Director: Nima Nourizadeh
Production Company: Partizan
Postproduction (Flame): Final Cut/Absolute
Editor: Dan Sherwen
Editing House: Final Cut
Post/Color Correction House: Company 3
Colorist: Tom Poole
Audio: Squeak E Clean
Animation: The Picture Mill
Digital Agency: Profero
PR Agency: Edelman