I actually have the full cue of this from a rare 3 inch promo disc released in Germany only back in 05 and it's beautiful. This track is featured as an intro edit and then there's the full cue that's about 03:34 minutes long. It features elements of both, 'Close to Home' and 'Long Way Frome Home' but is still not exactly the same. It's the full version, never released anywhere else since it was made specifically for the client, o2 back in that 04/05 period. This ad and the narration by Sean Bean, really makes me sad and I really miss that period in time. It was a point in time when things felt fresh. Creativity was in abundance, more freedom to experiment and aesthetically, things were much better compared to the blandness of flat, corporate minimalism that exists today. The style and flair of everything has all but disappeared. It's a tragedy. Flat design, minimalism and 5 minute trends have infected all corners of the world in advertising, media and design. It's a blight on everything and it makes me sad thinking how we went from creative ad's like this, 'Oh to be a Speaker' ad back in 04 and the creative and experimental 2008 Sky Ident's by Jon Yeo and his team at Sky to the very minimalistic, low effort trash that's advertised now. Look at the creativity of web design of the late nineties to the early 2000's, everything was different and the effort to make websites look great was everywhere, now everything is so homogenous and sickeningly minimal. I wouldn't want to be a graphic designer today, the effort is gone and there's not much great left there.
One of my all time favourite o2 ad's in their entire repertoire of ad's. The creativity of different shots appearing with various different things going on, the o2 bubbles appearing in and out of different shots, the blue hue and filmic like look, synonymous with the o2 brand at the time, the experimental sound design music/sfx used in this which was originally from Fatboy Slim's, 'Long Way from Home' (Can't believe o2 got Slim to make an edited version of that track for their 2004/2005 ad's at the time, crazy yet genius and really helped elevate the brand at the time) Sean Bean's narration as well... now, look at the o2 ad's of today, they are generic and quite frankly rather rubbish. Firstly... there's nothing to them, no visual style/flair, no creativity, it's about selling something under some sort of trend, their ad's back in the day were about being creative, something to try and get you to purchase their product which is why real effort was put into the whole ad from the visual style and concept and VFX to the sound design and narration, everything came together perfectly, now, it seems like they let anyone off the street do an ad considering how generic they are. As soon as I see a recently made one, I usually just turn it straight off, it's a real tragedy and I used to regard o2 as being one of the best for their ad's and thematically designed phones of the time period, everything looked odd and alien and different and well...just great, now everything is homogenous samey feeling or uniform, creativity in the industry is largely dead and it's just the golden days of advertising doesn't exist anymore, unfortunately. What a tragedy... o2 (and may other brands) really need to step their game up but I know they most likely never will because they still get sales. When this ad came out, the internet was nowhere near as big as it is today and online sales will be a lot stronger now I'd imagine due to the demand and boom of the net, driving in consumers. It's tragic and nothing can be done to resolve or fix the issue because it's such a big problem that can't be fixed in five minutes unfortunately.
I actually have the full cue of this from a rare 3 inch promo disc released in Germany only back in 05 and it's beautiful. This track is featured as an intro edit and then there's the full cue that's about 03:34 minutes long. It features elements of both, 'Close to Home' and 'Long Way Frome Home' but is still not exactly the same. It's the full version, never released anywhere else since it was made specifically for the client, o2 back in that 04/05 period.
This ad and the narration by Sean Bean, really makes me sad and I really miss that period in time. It was a point in time when things felt fresh. Creativity was in abundance, more freedom to experiment and aesthetically, things were much better compared to the blandness of flat, corporate minimalism that exists today. The style and flair of everything has all but disappeared. It's a tragedy.
Flat design, minimalism and 5 minute trends have infected all corners of the world in advertising, media and design. It's a blight on everything and it makes me sad thinking how we went from creative ad's like this, 'Oh to be a Speaker' ad back in 04 and the creative and experimental 2008 Sky Ident's by Jon Yeo and his team at Sky to the very minimalistic, low effort trash that's advertised now. Look at the creativity of web design of the late nineties to the early 2000's, everything was different and the effort to make websites look great was everywhere, now everything is so homogenous and sickeningly minimal. I wouldn't want to be a graphic designer today, the effort is gone and there's not much great left there.
One of my all time favourite o2 ad's in their entire repertoire of ad's. The creativity of different shots appearing with various different things going on, the o2 bubbles appearing in and out of different shots, the blue hue and filmic like look, synonymous with the o2 brand at the time, the experimental sound design music/sfx used in this which was originally from Fatboy Slim's, 'Long Way from Home' (Can't believe o2 got Slim to make an edited version of that track for their 2004/2005 ad's at the time, crazy yet genius and really helped elevate the brand at the time) Sean Bean's narration as well... now, look at the o2 ad's of today, they are generic and quite frankly rather rubbish.
Firstly... there's nothing to them, no visual style/flair, no creativity, it's about selling something under some sort of trend, their ad's back in the day were about being creative, something to try and get you to purchase their product which is why real effort was put into the whole ad from the visual style and concept and VFX to the sound design and narration, everything came together perfectly, now, it seems like they let anyone off the street do an ad considering how generic they are. As soon as I see a recently made one, I usually just turn it straight off, it's a real tragedy and I used to regard o2 as being one of the best for their ad's and thematically designed phones of the time period, everything looked odd and alien and different and well...just great, now everything is homogenous samey feeling or uniform, creativity in the industry is largely dead and it's just the golden days of advertising doesn't exist anymore, unfortunately.
What a tragedy... o2 (and may other brands) really need to step their game up but I know they most likely never will because they still get sales. When this ad came out, the internet was nowhere near as big as it is today and online sales will be a lot stronger now I'd imagine due to the demand and boom of the net, driving in consumers. It's tragic and nothing can be done to resolve or fix the issue because it's such a big problem that can't be fixed in five minutes unfortunately.
Did this commercial air in Germany?
Anyone know what the song used is?
Fatboy Slim - Long Way From Home
@@DJ3lectrical awesome, thanks so much.