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Full page ads produced specifically for parenting press titles, focused on promoting the Alfa Romeo Stelvio as the family car without compromise.

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Full page press ads celebrating the four ‘What Car?’ awards won by the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio.

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As a partner agency to Armando Testa, Alfa Romeo’s global advertising agency (and Italy’s largest), we were invited to pitch creative for a new TV ad starring real life couple Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes.

The brief was that the ad had to be set to either a poem or a piece of music, and it had to feature both the Stelvio and Giulia models along with the celebrity couple.

I submitted an option for each, with ‘Love’s Philosophy’ by Percy Shelley for the poem and ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’ by Frank Sinatra for the piece of music. Both were chosen for development, but unfortunately none of the Gosling / Mendes ad concepts produced for (and by) Armando Testa ever actually made it to production. I was quite happy with mine though, so here they are.

ROUTE 01 / SHELLEY

LOVE’S PHILOSOPHY
Percy Shelley

The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single,
All things by a law divine
In one another’s being mingle—
Why not I with thine?

See the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdain’d its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea—
What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?

The main theme of ‘Love’s Philosophy’ is that of the connection that exists between all things in the world, and here we allude to the relationship between Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes, Giulia and Stelvio, power and grace, car and driver, mechanics and emotion.

The direction for the ad is that as Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes are, for a Hollywood couple, normal, down-to-earth people, we reflect normal life, rather than Hollywood, juxtaposing the grand, dramatic scenes evoked by Shelley’s majestic poem with more everyday visuals (still beautifully shot).

So when we hear Eva Mendes’ voice-over saying ‘The fountains mingle with the river. And the rivers with the ocean,’ we see Ryan Gosling driving along a suburban street in a red Stelvio, passing by front-lawn sprinklers, whose run-off trickles onto the road producing little streams which form a puddle that the car then drives through.

‘The winds of heaven mix for ever. With a sweet emotion;’ – the car causes a breeze to lift a few leaves which dance by the roadside as it drives by.

‘Nothing in the world is single, All things by a law divine. In one another’s being mingle— Why not I with thine?’ – Ryan Gosling takes over the VO as we see Eva Mendes driving through and away from a nearby city, in a matching red Giulia.

‘See the mountains kiss high heaven, And the waves clasp one another; No sister-flower would be forgiven. If it disdain’d its brother;’ – back to Eva Mendes for the VO, both cars make their way up different sides of the same large hill, long grasses and wildflowers blowing in waves by the roadside.

‘And the sunlight clasps the earth, And the moonbeams kiss the sea — What is all this sweet work worth…’ – Ryan Gosling takes back the VO as the sun starts to set at the top of the hill.

‘If thou kiss not me?’ – VO said by both, as they finally meet, the sunset, cars and a breathtaking view of where they’ve driven from behind them.

ROUTE 02 / SINATRA

I’VE GOT YOU UNDER MY SKIN
Frank Sinatra

I’ve got you under my skin.
I’ve got you deep in the heart of me.
So deep in my heart that you’re really a part of me.
I’ve got you under my skin.

I’d tried so not to give in.
I said to myself: this affair never will go so well.
But why should I try to resist when, 
baby, I know so well
I’ve got you under my skin?

The ad starts with Ryan Gosling driving down a regular street, playing Frank Sinatra’s classic 
‘I’ve got you under my skin’ on his Stelvio’s entertainment system. He stops at a red light.

Driving her Giulia, Eva Mendes pulls up alongside him in the next lane. He smiles across at her, but she doesn’t smile back, just stares at him intently, and revs her engine as the first verse ends with the line ‘I’ve got you under my skin’, alluding to the power of the engine under the hood.

The lights change and the music changes up several gears into a drum and bass-style remix of the classic, as she drives away before him.

Ryan Gosling follows and manages a graceful overtake, in a manoeuvre reminiscent of his iconic 2011 movie ‘Drive’. A close-up of Eva Mendes reveals a smile, she’s not to be outdone, and when we cut back to the cars we’re in a huge, white, brightly-lit studio.

Our protagonists are now skilfully using the cars to ‘dance’ with each other (at times almost touching), weaving gracefully around one another in a passionate automotive tango – reflecting Alfa Romeo’s brand values of power and grace, meccanica ed emozione.

The ‘dance’ ends with a close-up of Ryan Gosling, the music stopped abruptly by the honking of car horns behind him. He’s still waiting at the lights, but they turned green during his daydream.