Valedictorian, produced for Seagram Americas.
Valedictorian.avi or Sound03 - Valedictorian.mov; download time, 5.5 minutes at 56K {Sound01 - VR-Valedictorian.asf; for sound only
Using metaphor to make its point, Valedictorian clearly targets the male viewer. We see a large, obviously well-trained vizsla (if it wasn’t well trained, who would want to be near it?) bringing the morning newspaper up the steps. The scene evokes the gracious life, even if it doesn’t quite translate to the real world: As dog owners know, the family pet–if it fetches the newspaper–is as likely to shred it as to deliver it. The setting is obviously upscale, and so is the reading matter–the New York Times. The music is Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance; the vizsla, the spare narrative tells us, is an “obedience-school graduate.”
We next see an identical vizsla bringing in a velvet-pouched bottle of Crown Royal. (Or, is it the same dog, doing double duty with the help of editing techniques that make it look like the twin of the first–a commercial takeoff on Multiplicity, which brought multiple Michael Keatons to the screen?) This dog is not just a graduate, the narrator and chyrons tell us; it is the “valedictorian”: a clear invitation to the viewer to see Crown Royal, too, as being at the top of the heap. If the class of canine brings a sense of nobility to the ad and product, this particular specimen is so well trained that it intensifies the image of controlled elegance, of comfort–an almost royal dog striding through a minimalist palace. Perhaps, echoes of Elgar’s very similar Coronation March whisper across our minds. This is all a postmodern variation on the blend’s brand name. The advertisers deploy the images to persuade the well-off and upwardly mobile that Crown Royal should be the Chablis or chardonnay of their generation. Real men, the message here has it, don’t drink wine–any more than they would own a poodle; and upscale men can do better than a beer and a mutt.
Using metaphor to make its point, Valedictorian clearly targets the male viewer. We see a large, obviously well-trained vizsla (if it wasn’t well trained, who would want to be near it?) bringing the morning newspaper up the steps. The scene evokes the gracious life, even if it doesn’t quite translate to the real world: As dog owners know, the family pet–if it fetches the newspaper–is as likely to shred it as to deliver it. The setting is obviously upscale, and so is the reading matter–the New York Times. The music is Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance; the vizsla, the spare narrative tells us, is an “obedience-school graduate.”
We get a brief glimpse of a dark glowing warmth in cut glass as the pouch falls away, much as a shift might fall from the shoulders of a man’s lover. Valedictorian floats subliminal notes like this one, but uses few words–only nine, compared with the 90 or more in the usual 30-second spot. This ad is almost a nonpolitical bumper sticker, a simple image designed to give a familiar name fresh life.
Thus the ad hits its target–but it never attempts to tell us why Crown Royal hits the spot. The appeal is to a different kind of taste.
We get a brief glimpse of a dark glowing warmth in cut glass as the pouch falls away, much as a shift might fall from the shoulders of a man’s lover. Valedictorian floats subliminal notes like this one, but uses few words–only nine, compared with the 90 or more in the usual 30-second spot. This ad is almost a nonpolitical bumper sticker, a simple image designed to give a familiar name fresh life.
The owners of Seagrams also control Universal Studios and MCA. Just as Disney’s 101 Dalmatians is coming to neighborhood theaters, Crown Royal’s twin vizslas are coming into your homes. Man’s best friend, the ad seems to tell the best of men, is telling us that Crown Royal is man’s best drink.
Finally, we see the two vizslas, waiting for their master’s choice: Crown Royal, ready to be consumed with the Times. The unanswered question, of course, is this: Has the first dog waited all day to fetch the paper, or is its master about to have the first drink of the day sometime in the morning?
