For S Asians, bragging rights around the joy of travel are directly connected to the sights and sounds of home and family.
We tap into this visceral connection with "home" in our latest spot - for TD Visa First Class.

The team:
Client: Graham Robertson, Anne Kerekes, TD Canada Trust
Agency: Barrett and Welsh

Creative Directors: Mike Welsh and Gavin Barrett
Writer: Gavin Barrett
Art Director: Bhupesh Luther/Gavin Barrett

Directed by: Richard Picton
Producers: Augusta Brook/Wendy Errington
Agency Production Coordinator: Tina Chan

Editor: Chris Brook

Music/Sound Design: Mark Dwyer, Zoo Music
Sound Engineer: John "Wheels" Hurlibut

DOP: Johnny Askwith
Studio: Deb Cochrane
Motion graphics: Alwyn Pereira

In April 2010, I was interviewed by Marc Montgomery of CBC's The Link on why so much multicultural work is so poorly made and why it so often misses the point.

There are a few reasons and I touch on a couple in the interview. Click here or on my post title to go to an archive of the show.
The interview only begins at 26:20 - so move the slider forward to that point if you're short of time.


Interview via CBC Radio International podcast archives.
Article: Creative Commons License 2010 Gavin Barrett
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.

When did merely being brown qualify anyone to judge multicultural advertising? Do clients do this with mainstream ads? Do they ask random white folks if their multimillion dollar campaign works? And then, do they yank it?

Full disclosure: this campaign was my brother's work.
(Russell Barrett - at the time Executive Creative Director at Bates in India - is now at Bartle Bogle Hegarty Mumbai in the same role).

Warning: 110 commercials.
Relax, they're about 10 secs each.

Ok, now that's out of the way... this is a great campaign.

It's for Virgin Mobile and it's work Richard Branson could gladly dip his beard into and sign big fat cheques with.

110 commercials in which die-hard Indian cricket fanatics from several different Indian states call each other.
To deliver the kind of insults that, in English, are best begun with a "Yo' mama...".

Where does Virgin fit in? (Get your mind our of the gutter, people.)

Well, Virgin makes it possible thanks to long distance calling rates that are a mere .005 cents/min. This is smart, funny. pertinent, timely, salty, saucy work in the pure vernacular (yes, I know that's an oxymoron). And it's utterly satisfying as a result. Want to know what it means? Write to me and I'll tell you.

Or if you're in Canada, why not call me? It's just 10c/min, long distance, on Rogers. Oh, what's that, let's see... a mere 200 times more expensive.

Article: Creative Commons License 2010 Gavin Barrett
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.

At first sight, this Eid ul Fitr ad from Levis Indonesia, seems relatively straightforward. The kind of harmless but useless festival advertising that most banks in Canada like to do, for instance. The headline is what you'd expect of just such an ad: Let us celebrate this day of glory together. Happy Eid ul Fitr.

But a closer look reveals that it's not just another pair of blue jeans - it's a stunning visual depiction of the massed congregations so typical in Jakarta's giant mosques. A beautiful surprise set against that straight headline and proof that, yes, even in advertising, you can find God in the details.



Article: Creative Commons License 2010 Gavin Barrett
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.

It's Ramadan again and No Frills the Canadian discount supermarket is running a commercial advertising some halal specials.

They've picked the foods perfunctorily to start with - halal chicken, ground beef, etc.

They aren't promoting or advertising the most common and traditional of iftar foods - dates!

And of all the language choices available to them, they've chosen to run the ad in Punjabi. In a Bollywood movie commercial break. (Bollywood movies, everyone should know, are in Hindi).

It's the equivalent of running an English ad on French television.

To add to the confusion, an almost identical spot runs in the next commercial break - during the same movie - except, this one is for The Great Canadian Superstore and for some mysterious reason, this spot does run in Hindi.

It sounds like a carefully thought, perfectly executed strategy. If your strategy is to utterly befuddle your customers.

I won't even begin to explore the insultingly poor production values and the total absence of a creative idea from these ads.

Instead, I thought I should first show you some great Ramadan advertising, done right. Which is what I did last week.

Ramadan Kareem to my Muslim brethren.
I pray that Canadian marketers may one day do right by you.

Article: Creative Commons License 2010 Gavin Barrett
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.

This outstanding video from TED may be one of the most insightful presentations I've heard on the relationship between culture and consumer choice.

Sheena Iyengar dispenses with the consumer focus group and leaves behind some of the more obsolete but dearly loved quantitative testing methods so popular among marketers today. Instead, she dives deep into the the psychocultural motivations behind the act of choosing. Iyengar's research has been informing business and consumer-goods marketing since the 1990s and has produced material for writers like Malcolm Gladwell. All of which makes me think that her new book, the Art of Choosing is well worth buying.




Sheena Iyengar on the art of choosing | Video on TED.com


Article: Creative Commons License 2010 Gavin Barrett
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.