EXPERIENTIAL ADS IN AN EXPERIENCE WORLD

This Ad Age article about UK-based Mother Experience has made me grind my teeth. As readers of this blog know, I never (purposely) write about my clients or campaigns. It's the latent journalist in me. Whenever there is a connection, I try to include a disclosure statement. So, upon commenting on the article in question, I grind my teeth because you have no idea how many times I've written treatments for branded theater, long-format content, stand-up routines and even musicals. Every time, the clients thought the ideas were stellar but were too afraid to go with them. What they didn't know scared them immensely. And so, like the sheep that most brand managers are, they followed the flock. However, it seems some sheep are less sheepish.

When the minds at Mother, London, were noodling around with a TV campaign for client Unilever, it occurred to them: Why not take the premise and adapt it into a musical comedy for its brand, Pot Noodle?

The result might be the first branded musical, which will open at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival on Aug. 1.

It seems that Mother, London is a good shepherd.

But this hardly Mother's first time dabbling in the arts. The agency's production unit, Mother Vision, also created the feature film "Somers Town" in a collaborative project with Eurostar (the company that operates the passenger train service from London through the Channel Tunnel to France and mainland Europe). "Somers Town," directed by Shane Meadows, won best film at the Edinburgh and Berlin film festivals, and the best actor award at Tribeca.