Horror story.

Sometimes it's useful to reflect on who the audience for commercial work really is. There's plenty of artistic, really accomplished work around which is clearly made to impress other people in the industry rather than speak to the general public, and there can be a sense that creators have sometimes forgotten they're meant to be selling something.

On the flipside, there are plenty of bog-standard, utilitarian ads around which check all the 'selling something' boxes with zero artistry involved. An ideal industry would be dedicated to finding a perfect balance between the two, weighing up meaningful storytelling with compelling commercial messaging.

Then there's work like this film for Tesco which is neither thing and instead looks like the trailer for a horror film directed by Martin Parr. Often when we look at work that hasn't worked out, we have a sense of what its makers were hoping to achieve. Here, though, we are left baffled by every decision that sat between its conception to its arrival on our screens.

It's an answer to the question: what if 'Black Mirror' was a Tesco commercial? Without answering the more important question: why the hell would Tesco want a commercial that looks like a scene from 'Black Mirror'.

Product Category: Supermarkets

Territory: UK

Horror story.

by Syd Briscoe

Sometimes it's useful to reflect on who the audience for commercial work really is. There's plenty of artistic, really accomplished work around which is clearly made to impress other people in the industry rather than speak to the general public, and there can be a sense that creators have sometimes forgotten they're meant to be selling something.

On the flipside, there are plenty of bog-standard, utilitarian ads around which check all the 'selling something' boxes with zero artistry involved. An ideal industry would be dedicated to finding a perfect balance between the two, weighing up meaningful storytelling with compelling commercial messaging.

Then there's work like this film for Tesco which is neither thing and instead looks like the trailer for a horror film directed by Martin Parr. Often when we look at work that hasn't worked out, we have a sense of what its makers were hoping to achieve. Here, though, we are left baffled by every decision that sat between its conception to its arrival on our screens.

It's an answer to the question: what if 'Black Mirror' was a Tesco commercial? Without answering the more important question: why the hell would Tesco want a commercial that looks like a scene from 'Black Mirror'.

Product Category: Supermarkets

Territory: UK