2024 Was Remarkable In Its Remakes: Jonathan Kneebone

This was a year that was sent to test us. Morally, emotionally, logically, and financially. 

 

We were forced to question everything. 

From whether paying millions for a piece of fruit duct-taped to a wall was bananas. To whether Jaguar had lost its marbles upsetting old farts in its desire to re-brand.  

The concept cars, when they arrived, proved Jaguar was simply going for the young fart market after all. 

But it was all based on a mantra of founder, Sir William Lyons, to make every Jaguar a copy of nothing. 

And yet, when there is so much uncertainty in the air, we collectively tend to revert to making something familiar, rather than venturing into the unfamiliar.

The world seems to just want to copy everything. 

And yes, this year, remakes made a comeback. 

Some were deemed up there with the original. Dune, Mr & Mrs Smith, Wicked, Ripley, Shogun. 

Some were deemed less good. The Agency (nothing personal, but watching The Agency just makes fans long for a new series of the French original, The Bureau), The Day of the Jackal, The Office Australia.

This last one surely should have been a no from the off. 

I think I’d have rather watched the conversations in Amazon Prime’s offices about why they thought it might be a good idea to remake the show in Australia than watch its actual remake. 

Remaking The Office nowadays feels like someone is just having a laugh and making cash at our expense. Although, I have to confess, I did give the Saudi version of The Office an episode. This was oddly, and strangely, educational.

Sequels rarely outshine the originals – witness Gladiator – and it is yet to be seen whether Trump 2: The Return of The Orange will tower above the first instalment.

Despite a quite smart call to arms by Kamala and the Democrats to say, “We’re not going back,” it seems we all are destined to do just that.

In 1998, Gus van Sant remade the movie Psycho. And when I say remade, it was pretty much a shot-for-shot replica of Hitchcock’s 1960s original. 

The remake earned $37 million at the Box Office from a production budget of $60 million. The original earned less - $32 million. Probably because ticket prices were comparatively cheaper in the 60s. But significantly, it cost just $800,000 to make.

What’s the lesson here?

Maybe just that the world doesn’t need another Psycho. In every sense.

It is interesting to see how copies, homage (I looked it up - and interestingly, the plural doesn’t have an 's'), and imitations are viewed in different creative environments. 

In theatre, remakes happen every night. In advertising, god help you if someone can spot your reference point or your source material. Originality is everything.

Adland, it seems, is happy to take an idea that seems to work and extend it until it breaks. But copying or using a pre-existing successful formula is a no-go. 

Look at Telstra’s ‘Better on a Better Network’ campaign. Hard to imagine something with as much craft made this year. But then again, is the set up, scripting, and comedic timing too close to Nick Park’s work for Creature Comforts? The jury is still out, and believe me, they will be out having this exact discussion all year at every single awards show.

Look at Levi’s ‘Laundrette’ ad with Beyoncé. Hard to imagine a bigger influencer being used by a brand this year. But given you have that opportunity, why copy something that aired in a totally different country when she was just 4-years-old – and make it far less well today?

No-one is having a go at anyone for making some actual work this year.

In fact, making work became a bit of a rarity.

Most marketers, like most of their consumers, decided to keep their money in their pockets. So instead of producing anything, they simply got their agencies to pitch for their account. It made them feel like something was being achieved, I guess.

It is hard to imagine any agency having an account long enough these days for complacency to set in. But let’s hope moving things around from incumbent to opposition is more valuable than rearranging the deckchairs on a certain cruise ship.

One of the most challenging remakes of course comes every four years in the form of The Olympics. 

And the Opening Ceremony has moments that need to be repeated. From flag ceremonies, doves, and lighting the cauldron. 

Paris ripped up the rulebook by taking its launch events outside the stadium. And Thomas Jolly created some spectacle. Not to mention some scandal. Unfortunately, the heavens rained on their (boat) parade down the Seine. 

But that opening moment with the tricolour burst of smoke was almost as special as the reopening of Notre Dame. Another French masterpiece moment.

However, rising high above it all, Celine Dion’s closing reworking of Marguerite Monnot and Edith Piaf’s ‘Hymne A L’amour’ was quite possibly the cultural moment of the year.

The French’s appetite for experimentation was on full display throughout. And the Paralympic Opening Ceremony in many ways outperformed the Olympic version. 

Channel 4’s Paralympic campaign can usually be relied upon for Black Pencil-worthy brilliance. 

But for some reason, they chose to dilute a great idea about how Paralympians have to compete against the same scientific forces as athletes without disabilities – gravity, friction, time – by introducing a second, lesser thought that mirrored the posters. 

To some extent, many of the mighty had a slight stumble this year.

Apple squashed the creative life out of objects that inspire creativity for its ultra-thin iPad. And it upset Thailand with its latest instalment of the Underdogs saga.

Uber Eats has developed a formula that is so effortlessly simple in outdoor form that it is starting to bite. The No-Yes Miami Art Basel poster is a great example. But when the idea appears on TV, the structure becomes a whole lot more tricky. 

The gag seems to have become more about establishing why Uber doesn’t deliver certain things, but I’m being picky. Structure aside, the ad with George from Seinfeld, I mean Jason Alexander, was funny.

Canal+ made a thriller of an ad – Jonny Green making 90 seconds go a long way. But the ending was so weak by comparison, the bear hearthrug would undoubtedly have poured scorn on it.

Speedo had a good line and a ridiculous song. But was a bit thin on material. 

Speaking of which, a couple of brands, Burberry and Man United, felt it might be wise for Barry Keoghan to put on some kit. And the Saltburn star seems to be becoming the relatable superstar that adland loves.

In amongst all the chaos and confusion, some credit needs to go to the team behind the 36 Months campaign (Wippa and Rob Galluzzo) for encouraging and securing an age limit on social media platforms. 

If the government had also seen fit to implement a ban on gambling advertising, it might have turned its own fortunes around. 

But it seems there may be more votes in things affecting kids than things affecting adults. 

Having said that, one brand really has gone out on a limb recently.

OREO seems to be bucking the trend of banning gambling advertising by introducing 6-year-olds to the excitement and unpredictability of betting. I am genuinely not sure how this hasn’t been picked up by Ad Standards.

So let’s get to the work that rose above the rest, and will probably be magnetically attracting metal this year as opposed to being polarised the wrong way and repelling it.

Apple made up for a bunch of mistakes by creating a fabulous, Hitchcockian remake of its own. Ivan Zacharias was the perfect choice for this – with Legacy FX and House of Parliament doing the effects.

Toyota rose from the mud to create a rather delightful spot – which had suggestions of Boag’s Pure Waters about it. But the evolution of the ‘knife to a gunfight’ line, made famous by Connery in The Untouchables, was worth the price of entry alone.

It is hard not to be shocked by the sight of mothers who have just given birth gorging on burgers. But when Felipe Serradourada Guimarae saw them, he knew they were incredible posters. It’s almost all the more shocking when you discover these are real moments.

There’s rarely a year in which Uncommon doesn’t surprise us. And for me, these posters of passengers looking out of aeroplane windows deserved credit for brilliant cropping, if nothing else. 

A campaign where billboards became giant price tags for IKEA furniture in 2002 remains one of my favourite pieces of outdoor advertising. But this year, PENNY Supermarket’s agency Serviceplan went almost one step further: making the price tags the actual name and design of various essential items. Simple, brilliant, and smart. But the real message, of course, is these prices aren’t changing any time soon. And customers are smart enough to know that. 

Doordash won the Super Bowl with its ‘All the Ads’ project. The originality and newsworthiness of literally sending someone everything else that was advertised throughout the Big Game was cracking. It seems W&K Portland is proving they can do more than Just Do It.

CALM can always be relied upon for wonderful, breakthrough work. And this year was no exception. Its massive birthday celebration balloons took on new poignant meaning. The display at Westfield featured 6,929 balloons – each with an age representing a young person who has died by suicide in the last decade, commemorating the birthday they did not reach.

There must be something in the air at adam&eveDDB at the moment, because its inflatable, overweight dog for IAMS (which we were lucky enough to get invited to create) also turned more than a few heads.

Gap hasn’t really had much to sing and dance about in recent times. But by choosing to remake its traditional idea of clothing dancers and choreographing something fresh, it suddenly felt contemporary again. Hooking into Troye Sivan and his superstar dance coordinator, Sergio Reis, proved a bit of a masterstroke. 

And if we needed to be reminded that the Christmas ad market is the UK’s Super Bowl, the competition this year for top spot was typically tough. There was some nice international work too from Telstra, but the winner has to be Waitrose’s Christmas mystery, 'Sweet Suspicion'. 

Waitrose saw this idea through the entire line. From t-shirts in store suggesting which of the characters had stolen the dessert, to getting the Line of Duty team to examine the scene for clues, this was no-holds-barred advertising. My only regret was that the culprit wasn’t David Suchet. Him arriving in a pinny, holding the pudding and saying “Voila,” would have made my year. 

Given that our creative goal each year has become creating cultural moments that connect, communicate, and grow a legacy, it is hard to beat the likes of Celine Dion singing live on the Eiffel Tower in the rain. 

But Archie Moore’s work for the Venice Biennale should be celebrated as the creative highlight that it is.

His exhibition ‘kith and kin’ at the Australia Pavilion won the Golden Lion for Best National Participation, the first time ever an Australian artist has received such an award.

Much better to make history than remake it, don’t you agree?