APPEALNOW.COM | BINGO | 2005
To Write the Ticket, They Shook the Whole Car / APPEALNOW.COM "BINGO"
A group of parking wardens are rocking a parked car back and forth, hard. Their one and only goal: shake the disabled parking placard off the dashboard. The second it falls, they slap on a ticket and walk away.
The problem
AppealNow.com is a UK web service that helps people dispute unfair parking tickets.
The insight
Parking wardens tend to be disliked everywhere, in every country. The thinking here seems to be that showing that "everyone hates them" feeling works better if it looks genuinely plausible rather than cartoonishly exaggerated. Shot like rough documentary footage, it doesn't look like a made-up story—it looks like something that's actually happening, which is exactly what makes it so unsettling.
The idea
While the car's owner is nowhere in sight, the wardens grab hold of the car and shake it violently, refusing to stop until the placard falls. The instant it drops, they whip out a ticket and leave. A woman with a cane comes rushing over, but it's already too late. There's no explanation of the service itself anywhere in the ad—it's carried entirely by this one outrageous scene.
What happened
It won a Gold Lion in the Cyber category at the 2005 Cannes Lions. Together with another film in the same series, "Kicking," it also won an audience-voted award at The Viral Awards, London.
Afterthought
Back in 2005, before the term "viral video" had really settled into everyday language, this ad went out with this kind of mean, satisfying fake footage. It never explains a single thing about the service itself—it just rides entirely on the shared feeling of "parking wardens are the worst, right?" I love how bold that is. Watching it now, 20 years later, it's still just as funny, and still just as creepy.
Awards
- Cannes Lions Gold 2005
