M&C launches millennium epic

The mysterious Easter Island statues are the centrepiece of a

commercial to whip up public enthusiasm for the millennium

celebrations.

The monuments stand impassive as a thousand years of history are

condensed into a single day for the #250,000, 60-second film through M&C

Saatchi, which breaks on Christmas Day.

Its appearance marks the first advertising by the Government’s New

Millennium Experience Company, whose Dome has been subjected to

relentless media criticism and public cynicism.

The #1.5 million campaign, which will run for two-and-half weeks, makes

no reference to the Dome. Instead, it asks people to imagine that 1,000

years of history occurred between sunrise and sunset. It ends by urging

us to ’Imagine what you can do tomorrow’.

With a voiceover by Jeremy Irons, and music by Dave Stewart, the film

aims to tap into the emotional and reflective moods felt by people

during the festive season.

’The film is about fuelling people’s expectations and generating

enthusiasm,’ Sholto Douglas-Home, the NMEC’s director of marketing and

communications, said. ’It’s also about getting people to realise that we

are privileged to be here at this point in our history.’

Simon Dicketts, M&C Saatchi’s joint creative director who wrote and art

directed the commercial, spent more than a week on Easter Island with

the film’s director, Malcolm Venville.

’It had long been in my mind to use the statues, which are not only as

old as the millennium itself but make a perfect sundial,’ Dicketts

said.

The Dome will not figure in advertising until late autumn when tickets

go on sale.

This article was first published on Campaign