Unilever ice cream brand Cornetto is continuing its habit of telling cute long-form love stories, but now it's trying to tell one from both sides at the same time.
The video below offers interweaving perspectives of a nascent teenage romance that's on the verge of realization—delineating between internal monologue and external dialogue by tricking out the audio (it's a binaural recording, captured by two microphones to create a 3-D sensation—headphones are recommended) and encouraging viewers to switch between the first-person views of the female and male leads, to see through their eyes.
It's an intriguing approach that's a little tricky to follow at times—switching back and forth gets a little tedious. (It's also not nearly as seamless as what Wieden + Kennedy did with Honda's "The Other Side.") It might be smoother to have the camera just switch back and forth between perspectives on its own—effectively what it did, to some degree, in the brand's Turkish hit from a couple years back.
And the wind-up could probably be a little shorter. Ultimately, it's high school prom drama, which is inherently pretty boring to everyone except the high schoolers experiencing it. (The librarian's side-eye during all the handwringing pretty much sums up the right way to feel about it—and ultimately, it turns out she's a narrator of sorts.)
Then again, since high schoolers are Cornetto's target, the outsized significance may be perfect. And even you olds might find yourselves invested in the story—if these dumb kids could just get it together, they'd realize they're more on the same page than they think. By the time the guy works up the courage to ask out his best friend—who's interested in him, too—it's actually quite satisfying, complete with him delivering a feel-good, gawky, geeky dance, and her serving him looks that kaleidoscope among perplexed, thrilled, embarrassed, dubious and thrilled again.
In other words, given it's just an elaborate ploy to sell frozen treats, it's a pretty sweet thing.
CREDITS
Client: Cornetto
Agencies: Mofilm; A Taste of Space
Creative Director: Lorie Jo Trainer Buckingham
Creative Team: James Copeman, Max Ringham
Agency Producers: Rebecca Sykes, Rosalind Wynn
Production Company: ATOS