Ladies, Orangina wants you to know its new "Miss O!" diet drinks will make you feel empowered—even if you're hairy all over. Like a wolf. Or a hyena.
The brand's familiar, sexed-up animal characters are back and bitchier than ever in a couple of new French spots from Paris ad agency Fred & Farid. The first stars a wolfish diva who unceremoniously dumps her sobbing plaything in a public cafe, offering him a string of half-hearted platitudes before losing her patience, berating him for being a wuss, and storming out. (She may have a point.) The second spot, meanwhile, features the less sympathetic female lead—a lying fuzzball who can't help but cackle while telling her guy, who's back home cooking her dinner, that she has to work late. (She's ditching him to go out with her girlfriends instead.) "C'est qui le sexe fort?" advises the tagline, which the agency subtitles as "Who's the boss?" (The literal translation is something a little closer to "Which is the strong sex?") You know the answer.
Sure, the commercials turn gender roles on their head—stereotypically it's the guys doing the impatient dumping and making the fibs over the phone. But they're also a bit too absurd to be particularly offensive. At the same time, they're more realistic than previous installments. Orangina's beasts used to be clearly computer generated; now, the illusion appears to come from a mix of costuming and postproduction visual gimmicks. The result? A more convincing—and insane—effect.
Regardless, if you're buying what they're selling, you might be the type already prone to hair-raising megalomania.
CREDITS
Client: Orangina Schweppes France
Agency: Fred & Farid, Paris
Creative Directors, Copywriters: Frederic Raillard, Farid Mokart
Art Direction: Frederic Raillard, Farid Mokart, Pauline de Montferrand
Advertiser's Supervisors: Hugues Pietrini, Stanislas de Parcevaux, Florence Burtin
Agency's Supervisor: Hélène Camus
Agency TV Producer: Emmanuelle Grenier
Agency Postproduction: Katharina Nicol
Director: Joseph Kahn
Production: HSI
Producer: Kil Dellara
Music: Green United Music
Postproduction: Eight VFX, Los Angeles