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Creative Director’s Choice: Kelly Bayett of Barking Owl on VW’s ‘Same Difference’ campaign

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By Kyle O'Brien, Creative Works Editor

September 26, 2019 | 3 min read

Creative Director’s Choice gives creative directors a chance to highlight the work they think is the best out in the ad world — the ads and campaigns they believe are making a difference.

vw

Same Difference by Volkswagen

This week, Kelly Bayett, co-founder and creative director at Barking Owl, talks about how she relates to Volkswagen’s ‘Same Difference’ campaign for its Atlas SUV.

Kelly Bayett

Yes, I picked an ad for a well-known car. But here is the thing, I have four children. The oldest competes in speech and debate, the second does basketball, the third does club soccer and the last one is three and has to go along with what everyone else wants.

Our lives on the weekends are about getting up at 5:30am to get ready quickly, feed the kids and travel to a game almost two hours away.

The sports lives of families are early mornings, late nights, and in the spot John Hillcoat perfectly covers the chaos in his direction. It’s endearing and fun. The song choice (Johnny Cash’s These Are My People) is spot on. I love the languid movement of the music and that they didn’t go with some kind of frantic punk song or silly carnival music. You get to the heart of the story and the issue, which is that in all of the chaos, this is your family. These are your people. The bonds you make in these hectic everyday moments are the stories we bring up and laugh at years later. It turns into a piece with tremendous heart.

I watched it and I actually appreciated that it wasn’t a mini van, but there was enough room with the captain’s chairs for our entire family, without sacrificing room in the back for our things. I got the message they were trying to send – I noticed everything in the car and they didn’t have to hit me over the head with it.

While VW can’t build us another bathroom or solve our arguments, they can make it a lot easier to get to where we are going. With our people. Our life is busy, it’s messy and it’s really the greatest.

Kelly Bayett is co-founder and creative director at Los Angeles-based music and sound studio Barking Owl.

See the work by clicking on the Creative Works box below.

To see the latest creative ads and campaigns, visit The Drum’s Creative Works section. If you or your creative director would like to be featured in our Creative Director’s Choice, please contact Kyle O’Brien.

Volkswagen: Same Difference by Johannes Leonardo

By Volkswagen

Overall Rating 5/5

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