My Most Immortal Ad: Chaka Sobhani on Orange's Gold Spots
In the run up to this year’s Immortal Awards deadline, our jurors have been taking it in turns to select the ads and campaigns that have stood the test of time in their minds, revealing the reasons why they’ve stayed with them through the years as their Most Immortal Ads.
Chaka Sobhani, president and global chief creative officer of DDB, selects a fully fledged comedy campaign for Orange that was packed full of silver screen superstars.
The entry system for The Immortal Awards’ 2024 competition is now open. As always, entry is free for Little Black Book members and more information on how you can enter - and start your path to creative immortality - can be found at the bottom of the article.
Orange - Gold Spots
I’m sorry but I couldn’t contain myself to one piece but rather a genius campaign that put a new telco on the map in so many ways.
From the launch of Orange Wednesdays, which originally attached the brand to a free cinema offer, to a platform and creative vehicle from which the brand could talk to every product point from broadband to photo messaging, this campaign (which ran over years) is utterly brilliant.
It’s so difficult to create a format that can be genuinely serialised but Orange smashed it with this incredible scenario of film board idiots. The comedy writing is honed to perfection, the casting is on point, and each execution holds up to the entertainment genre it apes.
The calibre of talent they attracted (Macauley Culkin, Patrick Swayze, Sean Astin and Roy Schneider to name but a few), speaks volumes to the quality of writing and output. Like the mark of any truly exceptional piece of work, it remains undated and unequalled, and still holds up today to repeat viewing.
It blurred the line between advertising and entertainment, and became the thing you’d look out for and would talk about with each execution.
What can I say, I’m jealous for all the right reasons.
The Immortal Awards entry system is now open and entries into competition will be accepted until September 5th 2024. All entries must be made for a commissioning client, and must have first aired, broadcast, displayed, launched or published between September 1st 2023 and August 31st 2024.
Every member of LBB is entitled to up to five entries. The full list of rules, including eligibility dates, can be found here.
If you’d like to enter the Immortal Awards but you’re not yet a member of LBB, sign up here today.
If you have any questions about The Immortal Awards or need any help with your entries, please contact awards directors Paul Monan (paulm@lbbonline.com) and Emma Wilkie (emma@lbbonline.com)
Thanks to our wonderful Immortal Awards partners
