Ed Norton Sings Karaoke, Almost Dies Several Times in New Droid Spot

This one’s been making the rounds for awhile now, but we thought we’d give some love anyway. McgarryBowen New York’s new spot for Verizion, “A Lot Can Happen in 48 Hours” features the talents of Ed Norton. It originally aired on December 5th, although it was posted to YouTube about a week before that.

In the spot, directed by Matthijs van Heijningen, Norton is thrown into a variety of dicey situations, with his Droid helping him get through most of them relatively unscathed. “A Lot Can Happen in 48 Hours” opens with Norton waking up to find himself in a strange room, with his Droid still at 3% power. “It’s been an interesting 48 hours,” Norton says, followed by a flashback. We then follow Norton through his series of misadventures, which begins with him finding a lost wallet and using Droid to find the location. This leads Norton to a karaoke bar, where he ogles a taken woman while singing “If I Could Turn Back Time” (the funniest part of the spot).

From here, Norton’s misadventures include attempting to land a plane, being held captive, having a key found in his stomach, playing a high-stakes game of Connect Four, and being held captive once again. Its everything-goes-wrong brand of humor borrows a little bit from The Hangover series, and although the spot seems to employ the kind of random connections Grey NY used in their 2012 DirectTV campaign, the superior execution helps keep it from feeling too easy or derivative. The spot uses a clever setup to promote the Droid’s impressive battery life, and then finds ways to showcase the phone’s other features in the process. This is certainly a far cry better than McgarryBowen Chicago’s disastrous “Denskies” campaign for Sears. Bonus points for the excellent use of a Lykke Li song. Credits after the jump. continued…

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Activision, 72andSunny Bring the House Down with ‘Epic Night Out’

“Epic Night Out,” the splashy new 90-second Call of Duty: Ghosts spot from 72andSunny for Activision, is indeed epic, and easily riffs on the four-guys-who-have-fun-in-danger motif made popular by The Hangover. There are a few celebrity cameos, a crumbling Las Vegas set, and classic music, Sinatra’s “Live Until I Die.” Very epic. But no baby, though. Instead, the four heroes and their dog travel from desert wasteland, to cityscape, to outer space, and then to a frozen tundra. With the music and quick editing, it’s hard to pay attention to anything else.

I’m all for first-person shooters, and I don’t think they are ruining kids. If this spot were for the U.S. Armed Forces, that would be different. But, it’s worth pointing out that guns, explosions, apocalyptic Vegas, Frank Sinatra, and Megan Fox is way past the boiling point of glorying violence for a TV spot. That’s sensory overload for all of the juiced up gamer-guys who are going to sit in the basements and pretend not to pee in empty soda bottles. It’s also brilliant misdirection.  And if not for the Grand Theft Auto V ads, this would be the best video game spot I’ve ever seen. Credits after the jump.

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