Small Ad

Posted by by Bertrand Lafontaine on 03 Sep at 02:05 AM

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What can you do with an idea that is so good, it is impossible to make it better? Make it worse…

If you haven’t seen Big Ad, the latest commercial of the Australian beer company Carlton Draught, watch it now. Seen it? Okay, then you’re ready for Small Ad, a big budget commercial muscle style.

We have to dissapoint those die-hard musclefans, who are licking their fingers by the very thought of the existence of Studio Muscle Beer. But hey, donate your life savings to the Studio Muscle Crazy Ventures Fund, and we’ll be more than willing to start our own brewery.

If you want to stay posted on more ‘Small Ad’-like Muscle films, send us an email. Every 37th subscriber will recieve a bottle of beer with authentic Studio Muscle label. If you can guess which beer is in the bottle, we’ll send you another one!

Cheers!

Read more about the making of ‘Small Ad’

If there’s one thing we learned from shooting ‘Small Ad’, it’s that you’ll always have to deal with unforeseen circumstances. No matter how small your budget is.

What we didn’t foresee, for example, is that field where we wanted to film, was covered with cow droppings. And so were our legs by the end of the day.

If that wasn’t enough, the local inhabitants were so nosy, we had to scare them away every two seconds or so. One cow cameo: we can live with that. But ten cows simultaneously poking the back of the actors is another thing. Anyway, one of the cows took revenge by peeing on Hendrik’s camera bag.

Another thing we hadn’t seen coming, was that in the area a mass hitch-hiking tour was taking place. A lot of people seemed to think we were some kind of cult, performing a last ritual before committing suicide. Can you blame them?

27 comments

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# Pip Heming Aug 25, 2005 at 06.26 pm

My compliments to the producer from the producer of the “Big Ad”.<br>
Bloody funny!

 
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# Bertrand Lafontaine Aug 26, 2005 at 01.25 am

Thanks! And our compliments to the makers of the best bloody ad we’ve seen in years. Too bad Carlton Draught isn’t for sale in Belgium. Is it any good?

 
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# shakerman Aug 26, 2005 at 01.59 am

made from mussels, haha!

 
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# chauvenist pig Aug 26, 2005 at 02.24 am

Bert…“Too bad Carlton Draught isn’t for sale in Belgium. Is it any good?”

I wonder if you ever tasted Australian beer? Or – say – any other beer NOT made in Belgium. They all taste like sheep’s piss to me. This – of course – is not to say that the Carlton Draught Ad is indeed pretty amazing, although it significantly lacks some sheep imho.

 
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# hewhoridestheepigeonshitcolouredMercedes Aug 26, 2005 at 03.59 am

tut tut tut , I’m very fond of Czech beer , but this isn’t the Beerforum isn’t it ?
staropramen
damn , just saw this also part of the imbev moloch…<br>

In that case, there’s only one solution :<br>
den ostensche baron

 
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# bram Aug 26, 2005 at 04.04 am

Carlton is what you get at the other end when you feed a horse with heineken. Heineken is what you get at the other end when you feed a horse with jupiler. Jupiler is what you get when walloon brewers sell their factory to a multinational called imbef.
Carlton is freely available throughout the UK, does that say un oeuf?

 
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# pieter Aug 26, 2005 at 04.28 pm

Omnipresent Australian beer (lager) in the UK is Foster’s (though Australians tell me it’s not common in Australia). Haven’t seen much Carlton in the UK.<br>
Stella “Inbev” Artois is the best-selling beer, but most people think Stella is a FRENCH Belgian brand, fed by a popular WWII commercial (‘the pilot’ 2004 on http://www.stellaartois.co.uk — check it out: advertising > past campaigns). Btw. the Stella is not imported but brewn in the UK. Lagers like Carling suck and am still convinced that ales taste like horsepiss (and better not to mention cider). However, will make a new attempt at http://www.beer-fest.org.uk after lunch tomorrow: might try a some of the 350 ales they got on offer (hmmmm… let’s hope am not too distracted by Rochefort etc. It’s tempting…)

 
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Small Stunt – Big Laugh

We really liked the Big Ad. Not only did we laugh at it but it provoked very big, very deep, very profound (and we wished, very expensive) thoughts. But amongst the folks at Studio Muscle, it provoked an outbreak…

 
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The Small Beer Ad

 
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muscle-beer-it’s-small-ad
Te acuerdas del anuncio de la cerveza Carlton Draught, aquel tan caro, grande y tremendamente freakie, pues ya tenemos su parodia. La nueva versión es más pequeÑa, su Dios también y obviamente es un anuncio un poco más barato.

 
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# franky Aug 30, 2005 at 04.13 am

The best Belgian viral marketing execution – so far. No doubt. You really should submit it to some local award contests like the Inside Internet Awards.
I’m very curious about the results : increase in site traffic, # subscriptions to the newsletter, # contracts for new ‘gigs’, # of postings in blogs – cfr. recent postings on AdLand and Marketingfacts.nl, increase in world-wide beer consumption ;-  etc.

 
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# hendrik Aug 30, 2005 at 04.41 am

Hey franky (did you know we had a computer animated presentator with the same name? He died though)
So far the traffic for http://www.smallad.be is really hitting the roof. It all started with a blog post on Scobelizer, that surely got the ball rolling. :-

Inside Internet awards? mmmm, sounds cool. I just submitted :- . Let’s cross our fingers :-

 
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# Ben Aug 30, 2005 at 08.22 pm

I live in australia and have never seen fosters for sale (out side of olimpics in 2000) let a lone consumed it. We tend to drink NEW,Old, Victorian Bitter(though it is rather sweet) or Coopers

 
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# dabitch Aug 31, 2005 at 05.31 am

we are highly amused.
*Small golf applause*

 
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# Scoobth Aug 31, 2005 at 06.27 am

Australian Beer Drinker Here
Nice take off of our big ad. I would just like to state that Carlton Draught is a terrible beer and so is fosters, this is the reason we export it to the rest of the world and dont drink it ourselves.

Although .. I am a huge fan of many of the belgium beers :D
(Australia isnt all shit beer .. coopers, boags, james squire, etc…)

 
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# hendrik Aug 31, 2005 at 06.40 am

@dabitch: thx for the plug on adland, it’s quite an honour :-  And frankly this stupid, small stunt is getting way out of hand to be honest.<br>
@all aussie beerdrinkers: thx for the compliments and rest assured that we are no if-it’s-not-belgian-it’s-shit beer fanatics. Although the best beers imho are still Chouffe, Orval and Augustijn, all belgian. Abroad I really enjoyed -you are NOT gonna like this – the kiwi dark brown speights in the commercial section ans some chech beers; But then again I have never been to australia and havn’t tasted many of authentic australian beers. I am so sorry but i still love you :-

 
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# Nano Sep 2, 2005 at 12.26 am

Lion Nathan has counter released following the Big Ad, and with the Vividas streaming tech – check out http://www.cleanfight.com.au  Just went ‘live’

 
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[...] came the small ad’s, I have to say none are as good as the Big Ad, however they do provide a good laugh. The first one comes from BlipTv – The Small Ad, not an Australian beer this time but Belgian. [...]

 
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# Duane Vincent Mar 6, 2006 at 12.30 pm

Loved the parody… still prefer a regional beer (Widmer’s Hefeweisen) from Portland, Oregon (USA).

 
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# http://www.duncans.tv/?p=118 Mar 19, 2006 at 05.53 am

[...] The story behind the ad can be found at the StudioMuscle blog. Studiomuscle is Belgian platform for music, movies, gigs and ‘general silliness’ – a collaboration between Wio D’hespeel, Hans Gruyaert, Jürgen Deblonde, Bert Lafontaine and Hendrik Dacquin. Hendrik’s the video artist. See their profile at Blip.tv [...]

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