Mountain (advertisement)
Encyclopedia
Mountain is a 2003 television and cinema advertisement
launched by Sony Corporation to promote the PlayStation 2
video game console
. The budget for production and advertising space purchases for the 60-second piece amounted to £5m across all markets. The commercial depicts a Brazil
ian crowd congregating together to form a mountain of human bodies, all competing to reach the top of the pile. The campaign surrounding Mountain was handled by advertising agency
TBWA London. The commercial was directed by Frank Budgen
. Production was contracted to Gorgeous Enterprises
, with post-production
by The Mill
. Mountain premiered in 30 countries on 13 November, 2003.
Mountain is part of the larger "Fun, Anyone?" series, launched earlier in 2003, which aimed to increase market share
for the PlayStation 2 in the family demographic
. The advertisement and its associated campaign were a critical and financial success. Mountain was nominated for over 40 awards from professional organisations in the advertising and television industries, including the Film Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival
, considered the most prestigious award in the advertising community. Due in large part to the buzz generated by Mountain, sales for the 2003 Christmas period exceeded expectations, and the PlayStation 2's share
of the console market increased from 74 to 77 percent.
looking out over an urban landscape. Shirley Temple
's "De Gospel Train" (from the film Dimples
) begins to play, and the view switches to show a crowd running through the streets, towards a heaving pile of people which forms a ramp up the side of a building. Everyone clambers over each other in an attempt to reach the top of the slope where, after a brief celebration, each is thrown back down by the others so a new person can take the top spot. The camera zooms out to a wide shot of the "mountain", and the campaign's strapline "Fun Anyone?" appears, followed by "PlayStation 2: Play the world online".
. The marketing campaign surrounding the release proved highly successful. Over the following three years, sales of the PlayStation 2 accounted for 74% of the console market. In 2003, the advertising agency behind the PlayStation 2 campaign, TBWA Worldwide, began looking into ways to expand sales of the console into other markets, in particular, families with young children. To this end, a new set of advertisements were commissioned using the strapline "Fun, Anyone?". The premise of the campaign was to showcase more gender-neutral, family-friendly advertisements. Many of the television spots were animated
to appeal to younger children, including Dancing Robot, Laughing Mouths, Winners and Losers, and Wobble. A new television spot was concepted for the 2003 Christmas period. The brief to the creative team was that the ad had to show people competing to be the best, to showcase the worldwide community of friendly competition surrounding the PlayStation 2. After discarding several ideas, the team eventually settled on the idea of a "King of the Mountain" game featuring a huge crowd of competitors. This concept would eventually evolve into Mountain.
With a script written out, the creative team began looking for a director for the project. Eventually chosen was Frank Budgen
, whose work with production company
Gorgeous Enterprises
had won a number of awards, including the 2001 Film Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival
for Nike
's Tag
, considered the most prestigious award in the advertising industry. Mountain was shot in Rio de Janeiro
, Brazil
. Over 1500 extras were recruited by a local production service company, Zohar International, for the six-day shoot, though no more than 500 were on set on any particular day. The extras included 50 stuntmen, gymnasts, and circus performers. Five carefully placed cameras were used to capture the early crowd scenes, buildings, and backgrounds. The final shot was taken by a helicopter-mounted camera, of the 50 trained extras running and climbing up a 20 ft cone fitted to the top of the Rio Sul Center
.
Post-production
work was done by The Mill
. Since the majority of the buildings and backgrounds were captured in-camera, the bulk of the work consisted of crowd replication, set extensions, and limited CGI
work on extreme wide shots. Crowd replication was achieved using MASSIVE software. At the time, The Mill was the only production company, other than its New Zealand
-based creators Weta
, licensed to use the software. Mountain was The Mill's first project to use the software. In all, Mill 3D artist Jordi Bares created 146,000 digital characters were created with individual behaviour patterns.
Mountain was a huge critical success, garnering more than forty awards and nominations within the advertising and television industries. It was the second-most-awarded commercial of 2004, after Cog for the Honda Accord
. At the BTAA Craft Awards
, Mountain was shortlisted for ten out of twenty categories, winning in six. In the run-up to the largest advertising awards ceremony of the year, the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival
, Mountain was tipped as a frontrunner for the festival's Grand Prix. The chief competition for the prize was believed to be Mr. Giant Taco Salad Inventor for Bud Light and Prison Visitor for Vim Bleach
. The 22 members of the awards jury spent six days deliberating over the decision, before ultimately awarding the prize to Mountain. Jury president Piyush Pandey
commented: "it was the simplicity of the idea and the magnitude of execution that helped Mountain stand out." The ad also received a Gold award in the Excellence in Music category, for the use of Shirley Temple's "De Gospel Train". Campaign magazine remarked: "Shirley Temple's sweet, innocent vocals contrast splendidly with the frenzy of activity onscreen."
Despite the acclaim received by Mountain, several critics expressed concerns over the loose connection between the ad and its subject matter. Greg Popp of AMV BBDO said of the piece: "I have admiration for its impeccable execution and that it was a brave ad, but it makes no connection with the gaming industry; I thought it was crafted to win awards", while Bob Garfield of Advertising Age remarked: "Mountain is more of an ad for the director than for the client, and thus a definitive example of production values utterly displacing advertising's raison d'etre: selling goods and services to people in exchange for money."
exceeded the targets set by Sony, and the console's share of the US$13b video game market increased from 74 to 77% over the period in which Mountain was aired. The ad resonated with many the public, and was described as "art" by a number of viewers.
TBWA continued to run the "Fun, anyone?" campaign throughout 2004, and as of 2009 continues to act as Sony's advertising agency for the successor to the PlayStation 2, the PlayStation 3
. Director Frank Budgen went on to direct Water Balloons in 2006, promoting the competing Xbox 360
console system. As one of the only people outside of New Zealand to have used the MASSIVE crowd multiplication software, animator Jordi Bares of The Mill was invited to give a keynote masterclass on artificial intelligence for crowd animation at UK CGI Festival in 2004.
Television advertisement
A television advertisement or television commercial, often just commercial, advert, ad, or ad-film – is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization that conveys a message, typically one intended to market a product...
launched by Sony Corporation to promote the PlayStation 2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
video game console
Video game console
A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...
. The budget for production and advertising space purchases for the 60-second piece amounted to £5m across all markets. The commercial depicts a Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
ian crowd congregating together to form a mountain of human bodies, all competing to reach the top of the pile. The campaign surrounding Mountain was handled by advertising agency
Advertising agency
An advertising agency or ad agency is a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients. An ad agency is independent from the client and provides an outside point of view to the effort of selling the client's products or services...
TBWA London. The commercial was directed by Frank Budgen
Frank Budgen (director)
Frank Budgen is a British commercial director and co-founder of Gorgeous Enterprises, a London-based film production company. He was voted as the Directors Guild of America commercial director of the year in 2007...
. Production was contracted to Gorgeous Enterprises
Gorgeous Enterprises
Gorgeous Enterprises is a London-based film production company co-founded by Chris Palmer, Frank Budgen, and Paul Rothwell. The company works largely in the production of television advertisements, feature films, and music videos. It was formed by Chris Palmer in 1996, but legally became a new...
, with post-production
Post-production
Post-production is part of filmmaking and the video production process. It occurs in the making of motion pictures, television programs, radio programs, advertising, audio recordings, photography, and digital art...
by The Mill
The Mill (post-production)
The Mill is a post-production and visual effects company launched in 1990 with offices in London, New York and Los Angeles.The Mill's Film special effects subsidiary, Mill Film, won an Oscar for its work on the film Gladiator. The Mill was the first UK-based post-production company to set up...
. Mountain premiered in 30 countries on 13 November, 2003.
Mountain is part of the larger "Fun, Anyone?" series, launched earlier in 2003, which aimed to increase market share
Market share
Market share is the percentage of a market accounted for by a specific entity. In a survey of nearly 200 senior marketing managers, 67 percent responded that they found the "dollar market share" metric very useful, while 61% found "unit market share" very useful.Marketers need to be able to...
for the PlayStation 2 in the family demographic
Demographic profile
A demographic or demographic profile is a term used in marketing and broadcasting, to describe a demographic grouping or a market segment...
. The advertisement and its associated campaign were a critical and financial success. Mountain was nominated for over 40 awards from professional organisations in the advertising and television industries, including the Film Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival
Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival
The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is a global event for those working in advertising and related fields. The seven-day festival, incorporating the awarding of the Lions awards, is held yearly at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès in Cannes, France...
, considered the most prestigious award in the advertising community. Due in large part to the buzz generated by Mountain, sales for the 2003 Christmas period exceeded expectations, and the PlayStation 2's share
Market share
Market share is the percentage of a market accounted for by a specific entity. In a survey of nearly 200 senior marketing managers, 67 percent responded that they found the "dollar market share" metric very useful, while 61% found "unit market share" very useful.Marketers need to be able to...
of the console market increased from 74 to 77 percent.
Sequence
The piece opens with a man perched on the edge of a skyscraperSkyscraper
A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building of many stories, often designed for office and commercial use. There is no official definition or height above which a building may be classified as a skyscraper...
looking out over an urban landscape. Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple Black , born Shirley Jane Temple, is an American film and television actress, singer, dancer, autobiographer, and former U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia...
's "De Gospel Train" (from the film Dimples
Dimples (film)
Dimples is a 1936 American musical film directed by William A. Seiter. The screenplay was written by Nat Perrin and Arthur Sheekman. The film is about a young mid-nineteenth century street entertainer who is separated from her pickpocket grandfather when given a home by a wealthy New York City...
) begins to play, and the view switches to show a crowd running through the streets, towards a heaving pile of people which forms a ramp up the side of a building. Everyone clambers over each other in an attempt to reach the top of the slope where, after a brief celebration, each is thrown back down by the others so a new person can take the top spot. The camera zooms out to a wide shot of the "mountain", and the campaign's strapline "Fun Anyone?" appears, followed by "PlayStation 2: Play the world online".
Production
The PlayStation 2 was released in 2000, backed by "dark and mysterious" advertisements designed to appeal primarily to the 18–24-year-old male demographicDemographic profile
A demographic or demographic profile is a term used in marketing and broadcasting, to describe a demographic grouping or a market segment...
. The marketing campaign surrounding the release proved highly successful. Over the following three years, sales of the PlayStation 2 accounted for 74% of the console market. In 2003, the advertising agency behind the PlayStation 2 campaign, TBWA Worldwide, began looking into ways to expand sales of the console into other markets, in particular, families with young children. To this end, a new set of advertisements were commissioned using the strapline "Fun, Anyone?". The premise of the campaign was to showcase more gender-neutral, family-friendly advertisements. Many of the television spots were animated
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
to appeal to younger children, including Dancing Robot, Laughing Mouths, Winners and Losers, and Wobble. A new television spot was concepted for the 2003 Christmas period. The brief to the creative team was that the ad had to show people competing to be the best, to showcase the worldwide community of friendly competition surrounding the PlayStation 2. After discarding several ideas, the team eventually settled on the idea of a "King of the Mountain" game featuring a huge crowd of competitors. This concept would eventually evolve into Mountain.
With a script written out, the creative team began looking for a director for the project. Eventually chosen was Frank Budgen
Frank Budgen (director)
Frank Budgen is a British commercial director and co-founder of Gorgeous Enterprises, a London-based film production company. He was voted as the Directors Guild of America commercial director of the year in 2007...
, whose work with production company
Production company
A production company provides the physical basis for works in the realms of the performing arts, new media art, film, television, radio, and video.- Tasks and functions :...
Gorgeous Enterprises
Gorgeous Enterprises
Gorgeous Enterprises is a London-based film production company co-founded by Chris Palmer, Frank Budgen, and Paul Rothwell. The company works largely in the production of television advertisements, feature films, and music videos. It was formed by Chris Palmer in 1996, but legally became a new...
had won a number of awards, including the 2001 Film Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival
Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival
The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is a global event for those working in advertising and related fields. The seven-day festival, incorporating the awarding of the Lions awards, is held yearly at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès in Cannes, France...
for Nike
Nike, Inc.
Nike, Inc. is a major publicly traded sportswear and equipment supplier based in the United States. The company is headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon, which is part of the Portland metropolitan area...
's Tag
Tag (advertisement)
Tag is a television and cinema advertisement launched by Nike Inc. in 2001 to promote its line of sportswear in the United States. It was one of four pieces forming the television component of the $25m "Play" campaign, which had been running for several months. Tag was created by advertising agency...
, considered the most prestigious award in the advertising industry. Mountain was shot in Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
. Over 1500 extras were recruited by a local production service company, Zohar International, for the six-day shoot, though no more than 500 were on set on any particular day. The extras included 50 stuntmen, gymnasts, and circus performers. Five carefully placed cameras were used to capture the early crowd scenes, buildings, and backgrounds. The final shot was taken by a helicopter-mounted camera, of the 50 trained extras running and climbing up a 20 ft cone fitted to the top of the Rio Sul Center
Rio Sul Center
Rio Sul Center is the tallest building in Rio de Janeiro at 164 meters 50 floors and was constructed in 1982. A hotel next to this building is planned for construction in the future....
.
Post-production
Post-production
Post-production is part of filmmaking and the video production process. It occurs in the making of motion pictures, television programs, radio programs, advertising, audio recordings, photography, and digital art...
work was done by The Mill
The Mill (post-production)
The Mill is a post-production and visual effects company launched in 1990 with offices in London, New York and Los Angeles.The Mill's Film special effects subsidiary, Mill Film, won an Oscar for its work on the film Gladiator. The Mill was the first UK-based post-production company to set up...
. Since the majority of the buildings and backgrounds were captured in-camera, the bulk of the work consisted of crowd replication, set extensions, and limited CGI
Computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
work on extreme wide shots. Crowd replication was achieved using MASSIVE software. At the time, The Mill was the only production company, other than its New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
-based creators Weta
Weta Digital
Weta Digital is a digital visual effects company based in Wellington, New Zealand. It was founded by Peter Jackson, Richard Taylor, and Jamie Selkirk in 1993 to produce the digital special effects for Heavenly Creatures. In 2007 Weta Digital’s Senior Visual Effects Supervisor, Joe Letteri, was...
, licensed to use the software. Mountain was The Mill's first project to use the software. In all, Mill 3D artist Jordi Bares created 146,000 digital characters were created with individual behaviour patterns.
Schedule
Mountain first appeared as a 60-second television and cinema spot in 30 countries throughout Europe and Asia on November 13, 2003. These appearances were backed by a poster campaign running from November 13 to December 24. The posters were widely distributed. In Germany alone, TBWA purchased space for 315 posters inside cinemas, with a further 36 outdoors and 38 oversized (3.49m2) posters, as well as appearing as inserts on 323 foyer screens. A 42-second version of the commercial screened in 36 cinemas across Germany. The overall spend for the "Fun, Anyone?" campaign over the 2003 Christmas period amounted to £5m. Mountain continued to air on television throughout 2004 in 10-, 30-, and 60-second versions. Despite its origins in the United Kingdom, it had not been aired in mainland Britain as of July 2004.Awards
| List of awards | |||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
EWLINE
|
Mountain was a huge critical success, garnering more than forty awards and nominations within the advertising and television industries. It was the second-most-awarded commercial of 2004, after Cog for the Honda Accord
Honda Accord
The Honda Accord is a series of compact, mid-size and full-size automobiles manufactured by Honda since 1976, and sold in a majority of automotive markets throughout the world....
. At the BTAA Craft Awards
British Television Advertising Awards
The British Television Advertising Awards are awarded each year at the Walker Art Center....
, Mountain was shortlisted for ten out of twenty categories, winning in six. In the run-up to the largest advertising awards ceremony of the year, the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival
Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival
The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is a global event for those working in advertising and related fields. The seven-day festival, incorporating the awarding of the Lions awards, is held yearly at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès in Cannes, France...
, Mountain was tipped as a frontrunner for the festival's Grand Prix. The chief competition for the prize was believed to be Mr. Giant Taco Salad Inventor for Bud Light and Prison Visitor for Vim Bleach
Vim (cleaning product)
Vim is the name of a range of household cleaning products originally produced by Lever Brothers. The Vim brand is currently owned by European multi-national Spotless Group.-History:...
. The 22 members of the awards jury spent six days deliberating over the decision, before ultimately awarding the prize to Mountain. Jury president Piyush Pandey
Piyush Pandey
Piyush Pandey is the Executive Chairman & National Creative Director Ogilvy & Mather India and the winner of over 600 awards for advertising from all over the world. He is also Vice Chairman of O&M South Asia. Under Pandey, Oglivy & Mather has become the third largest advertising agency in India...
commented: "it was the simplicity of the idea and the magnitude of execution that helped Mountain stand out." The ad also received a Gold award in the Excellence in Music category, for the use of Shirley Temple's "De Gospel Train". Campaign magazine remarked: "Shirley Temple's sweet, innocent vocals contrast splendidly with the frenzy of activity onscreen."
Despite the acclaim received by Mountain, several critics expressed concerns over the loose connection between the ad and its subject matter. Greg Popp of AMV BBDO said of the piece: "I have admiration for its impeccable execution and that it was a brave ad, but it makes no connection with the gaming industry; I thought it was crafted to win awards", while Bob Garfield of Advertising Age remarked: "Mountain is more of an ad for the director than for the client, and thus a definitive example of production values utterly displacing advertising's raison d'etre: selling goods and services to people in exchange for money."
Legacy
In addition to critical success, Mountain succeeded in achieving TBWA's goal of widening the consumer base from 18-39 males to the larger family demographic. Due in large part to the increased interest generated by Mountain and the "Fun, Anyone?" campaign, sales of the PlayStation 2PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
exceeded the targets set by Sony, and the console's share of the US$13b video game market increased from 74 to 77% over the period in which Mountain was aired. The ad resonated with many the public, and was described as "art" by a number of viewers.
TBWA continued to run the "Fun, anyone?" campaign throughout 2004, and as of 2009 continues to act as Sony's advertising agency for the successor to the PlayStation 2, the PlayStation 3
PlayStation 3
The is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment and the successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
. Director Frank Budgen went on to direct Water Balloons in 2006, promoting the competing Xbox 360
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
console system. As one of the only people outside of New Zealand to have used the MASSIVE crowd multiplication software, animator Jordi Bares of The Mill was invited to give a keynote masterclass on artificial intelligence for crowd animation at UK CGI Festival in 2004.
External links
- Mountain, at the Computer Graphics Society website (QuicktimeQuickTimeQuickTime is an extensible proprietary multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. The classic version of QuickTime is available for Windows XP and later, as well as Mac OS X Leopard and...
required)