We started with 32, and now just two remain in the Campaign Cup.
It’s a finals showdown between Zig’s “Start the Car” for IKEA, which gave us a phrase that’s become synonymous with finding a great deal, and Sid Lee’s “We the North,” a poetic ode to the Toronto Raptors and their defiantly outsider status in a predominantly U.S. sports league.
For this special episode, editor Chris Powell chatted with former Zig partner and creative director Elspeth Lynn, and Sid Lee’s executive creative director Jeffrey Da Silva, about how they made the iconic campaigns, and their significant cultural impact.
We also asked them to engage in some decidedly un-Canadian behaviour by offering a reason why their respective ad shoud win.
Lynn went first, pointing to the essential humanity and timelessness of "Start the Car," which continues to pop up on TV screens two decades after it first aired.
"We never expected it to last so long, and I think that's testament to the ad itself," she said. Plus, she added, it cleverly leveraged a key insight—the moral dilemma faced by people who think they've been under-charged on their purchase(s)—to make people laugh.
"I suppose what happens is that work takes on its own life, and the fact it's had such a long life means something."
Da Silva said "We the North" has far transcended its original use and crossed over to become part of the very fabric of the country.
"That inadvertent rebranding of Canda has given us a new look, and in doing so has captured the hearts of minds of a lot of people," he said. "It has elevated the sport in the country, and made a lot of non-fans fans because of it."
