"Birds"

11 March 2025

30s

It's all in the context.

If László Tóth was a brutalist, then the woman in this Bloomberg commercial is a contextualist. Shot by Brady Corbet, director of—you guessed it—'The Brutalist', the ad wants us to consider if a bird in the hand is indeed worth two in the bush. Is it a feathered friend or a feather fiend? The protagonist wants more information before she rules out the other two.

On closer inspection, the bird in the hand is a seagull: does it have her best interests at heart, or does it just want her chips? That makes her think about what two birds on the other side of the world have to offer: knowledge about migration patterns or insight into high-speed rail. For Bloomberg's curious and ambitious target audience, the "hand-bird" (we love the protagonist's disdainful delivery of that term) no longer cuts it.

The stakes have never been higher where context is concerned, but Corbet's TVC debut is as playful as it is earnest and refined. Daniel Blumberg, who won the Academy Award for Best Original Score for 'The Brutalist', also lends authority to the brand with big instrumentation. We're now keen to see where the director's post-brutalism phase takes him.

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