Baz Luhrmann bombs for Bombay Sapphire as social takes the driving seat

Bombay Sapphire’s new global campaign was two years in the making. Australian film director Baz Luhrmann is creative director and Juan Cabral, of Cadbury “Gorilla” and Sony “Balls” fame, made the centrepiece ad.

With so much talent in the mix, expectations are high, but the end result is a letdown. It’s an ad for a social media competition rather than for the drink itself: like most spirits, Bombay Sapphire is stuck for a brand idea that will pass the regulations and appeal to audiences.

So instead, everyone’s invited to “reframe the world around them” just like Baz and Juan, and to share their own images on social media with the hashtag #SawThisMadeThis.

If it’s good enough, Baz will share it on social. And next April there will be a showcase to celebrate World Creativity Day.

The film is a series of images shot by Cabral in Buenos Aires, all set to a soundtrack of a Jorge Luis Borges poem extract and Debussy’s “Arabesque”. It runs in the US, UK, Spain, Italy, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Greece and the Netherlands, and was developed in partnership with AMV BBDO, Ogilvy PR and OMD.

MAA creative scale: 5 (Creative ego scale is a lot higher)