Hasta La Creative!

There’s a decent payoff at the end of this initially perplexing Taxi spot for Canadian Tire, but I’m not sure viewers will hang in for it, if only because that “Summer Breeze” song sucks so damn much! This is actually a fairly cerebral and well-executed concept, the type of commercial Philip K. Dick would’ve created if he had been a copywriter. PKD was, however, not an ad scribe but a mind-bending novelist whose works inspired Blade Runner, Total Recall and Minority Report. Indeed, such mind games are probably best suited to films and books, as they require more attention to detail than the average consumer normally gives to a 30-second commercial. That cloying soundtrack alone will drive most viewers screaming from the room. And, perhaps needless to say, the lifeless “For days when seeing is believing” line lacks any sort of literary merit.

—Posted by David Gianatasio