The Magic Of This Spot Is That It’s Two Spots At Once
Norwich City Football Club recently ran a TV spot in support of World Mental Health Day. It’s a simple spot. Just once set, two actors, minimal dialogue. But the creators wisely avoid making any flat “claims.” Instead, by watching the spot and following its plot the viewers demonstrate the spot’s point themselves. I realize that sounds sorta nuts, so watch the spot first and then I’ll break it down.
Oof, right?
There are two spots going on at once
The first spot is the one we actually watch all the way through. Once we get the point—that we’ve completely missed the signs of a mental health problem—we rewind the spot in our minds and realize the mischaracterization. We thought the man on the right was so happy and excitable and the other man on the left utterly unexcitable. But in our second mental viewing, we realize just how badly we missed the signs.
The second go-round we realize that the quiet guy on the left isn’t depressed, he’s self absorbed. The man on the right asks, “Sorry mate, how are you doing”? What we now see is that the man on the right was desperate for the other man to ask HIM that question, but he doesn’t. Worse, in the next sequence, the man on the right asks…more slowly this time, “So uh…how’s the week been?” To which the man on the left only half-answers the question with, “Yeah, okay.”
But he doesn’t ask the man on the right the same question.
Meanwhile, and crushingly, upon our second mental rewind we no longer see a happy, adjusted man on the right elated to channel the football-stadium environment and who is emotionally excitable by the play on the field. We see a manic man who is likely on a wild upswing mentally.
And the spot does a brilliant job of creatively showing time passing and nothing changing. From that last dialogue to the next, there are exactly nine cuts indicating nine different games these two have attended (different clothes in each). And then the heart-wrenching line from the man on the right after a poor football performance, “Well, I hope things are better outside of the football.” Indeed.
We now know—in our mental rewind—that this poor man is calling out to his friend. Ask me! Ask me! Ask me how I’m doing! Ask me anything at all for chrissakes!
And we also now have an indication the man on the right had plans to commit suicide when he doesn’t want his scarf back. I admit I may be reading too much into that gesture. It may have just been a creative device to enable the man on the left to symbolically and visibly pay tribute to his friend at the end by putting the scarf on the empty seat. But I don’t think I am. Every second of this spot is finely tuned for this second showing in our minds. The scarf as a symbol of his suicide plans is subtle, but I wouldn’t put it past this creative team.
By being so wrong, the message of the ad lands (hard)
The message of this ad is that “Mental illness can be hard to spot.” Now, the creative team could have just created an ad that overtly said that. Many probably have. But the power of this spot is that the creative idea and performances trick us into doing exactly what they are warning against!
We think the guy on the left has mental issues, not the guy on the left. Even though there were, in fact, subtle clues throughout that the man on the right had issues. We only see it now in hindsight.
Well done, Norwich City. May your advertisement—your exercise in living through tragic hindsight—shift our awareness even a little.
Because when it comes to suicide, there is no hindsight.
Will Burns is the Founder & CEO of the revolutionary virtual-idea-generating company, Ideasicle X. He’s an advertising veteran from such agencies as Wieden & Kennedy, Goodby Silverstein, Arnold Worldwide, and Mullen. He was a Forbes Contributor for nine years writing about creativity in modern branding. Sign up for the Ideasicle Newsletter and never miss a post like this.