Heineken, the international Dutch beer, has made its mark in television advertising with ‘Disturbance’. A bar tender is tidying up at the end of the day. He carries three cartons of Heineken bottles – one carton too many. Bottles of precious lager are smashed as they hit the ground.
Far away, in a boxing ring a competitor is momentarily stunned by the disturbance. Immediately he’s knocked down by his opponent. In a hall somewhere else in the world a crowd stands to pledge allegiance to their country. We see the faces of men who are stunned into silence. In an operating theatre the surgeon stops and looks round. In a recording studio the lead singer has no words to sing. Outside in the street a man is caught in the rain as he looks around to locate the source of the disturbance. A couple are making love when the man pulls back. “Honey what’s wrong?” “I don’t know. All of a sudden I feel really, really sad.” The camera cuts back to the smashing bottles. The text: “It’s all about the beer. Heineken”.
Click on the image below to play the video.
Credits
The ad was created by Publicis New York, by creative directors Ted Royer and Ken Ratcliffe.
Director was Dante Ariola at MJZ
Music is played by piano, cello and mellotron (synthesised strings) and was composed by Jason Johnson, with sound designed by Guz Koven and produced by Kelly Fuller at Stimmüng. Jason’s composition is written up in the April 2005 edition of Shoot Magazine. Each experience of the ‘disturbance’ is accompanied by ominous thunder.
Visual Effects were added at The Mill, London under the hand of Chris Knight, particularly in the bottle scenes. Bottles were added to the shot and labels were replaced.
Andrew MacArthur, Peepshow, London, edited the material through Cosmo Street.