Surreal B&Q ad nails down prices and addresses cost of living crisis
The film was shot entirely upside down in a suspended reality, where the retailer's products were literally and figuratively nailed down.
Amid an ongoing cost of living crisis, B&Q hopes to remind customers of its value proposition.
Created by Uncommon, 'Prices. Nailed' succinctly conveys this narrative with an artistic shower of stocked tools and implements frozen in space and time above a garden and only as the camera pans do the miscellaneous assortment of items resolve into the shape of a hammer.
Precariously tethered to the ground, the items are shown dangling from an upside-down vantage point, a surprising frame of reference reinforced by falling objects such as a pint of milk, eggs and a smashed piggy bank – a metaphor for the financial strain people are experiencing.
Tom Hampson, marketing director at B&Q said: “Spring is always an important time of year for our customers, who turn their attention to resetting their gardens and giving their inside spaces a makeover.
“With rising prices across household bills, we know the dynamics will be different this year, but we still want to help our customers make the most of spring. That’s why we’ve nailed down prices on hundreds of essential spring products. We’re so pleased to be launching our ‘Prices. Nailed’ campaign to shout about it with this beautifully crafted piece of work from our long-standing partners at Uncommon.”
Shot with an inverted camera to turn our notions of physics upside down the dramatic piece saw objects painstakingly threaded into position to avert a Newtonian fall back down to Earth.
Screening on TV, social, video-on-demand and digital throughout April, with associated radio, outdoor and press executions to follow later in the month.
B&G has delighted in defying gravity in its marketing, as exemplified by an ambitious full-scale replica of a suburban house, wrenched asunder by an inexplicable force.
Credits
Project name: Prices. Nailed.
Client: B&Q
Creative studio: Uncommon
Production company: Biscuit Filmworks UK x Revolver
Director: The Glue Society
Producer: Tom Birmingham
Managing director: Rupert Reynolds-MacLean
Executive producer: Samantha Chitty
Head of production: Polly Du Plessis
Production manager: Adam Oyejobi
Director of photography: Krzysztof Trojnar
Production designer: Mark Connell
Stylist: Molly Robinson
Hair and makeup Poppy France
Editing company: Tenthree
Editor: David Whittaker
Post-production: Electric Theatre Company
Exec producer: Vic Lovejoy
Producer: Joe Billington
VFX supervisors: James Sindle and Amy Smith
2D lead: Amy Smith
Comp: Tane Welham
Comp: Catarina Goncalves
Grade: Jason Wallis
Sound: String and Tins
Audio post-production: String and Tins
Sound design: Adam Smyth
Audio mix: Joe Wilkinson
Audio producer: Olivia Endersby
Music supervision: King Lear
Music supervisors: Sarah Giles & Kaya Pino