BATCHELORS | ODE TO A PEA | 1990

An Ode to a Single Pea / BATCHELORS "ODE TO A PEA"

A white plate. One single pea. A violin swells as a poetic voice intones, "Oh pea, perfect sphere of jade, why do you torment me with your beauty?" Britain, 1990.

The insight

Tony Cox, who was creative director at BMP DDB at the time, later admitted that "Ode to a Pea" wasn't actually better than its closest rival entry. Even so, it won a D&AD Silver, simply on the strength of how sharp and memorable its simple execution was.

The idea

The camera slowly moves in on the pea as the poet asks, "How could something so perfect ever be improved?" At that exact moment, a fork appears and squashes it flat. And there you have it: mushy peas.

Afterthought

What a luxury, spending thirty seconds on a single pea. And yet that's exactly what turns the inevitable act of "squashing" it into a joke. Simple, vivid, and impossible to forget.

Awards

Cannes Lions Gold 1990

Three more the bear picked for you

30 years later, your stomach still remembers / NISSIN FOOD "HUNGRY? III UINTATHERIUM"

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NISSIN FOOD | HUNGRY? III UINTATHERIUM | 1994

30 years later, your stomach still remembers / NISSIN FOOD "HUNGRY? III UINTATHERIUM"

This is the Uintatherium installment, from 1994. It's part of the era when the series that had already stunned the world with mammoths and moas was still going strong. A caveman gets tossed around by a giant mammal, but in the end there's just the word "hungry?" and that white cup with red. By now this rhythm needs no explanation. It's one of the sequels in the series that won the Grand Prix at Cannes as a whole and became a landmark in Japanese advertising history.

This Is an Ad Starring a Puppet / LEVI STRAUSS & CO. "ID"

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LEVI STRAUSS & CO. | ID | 1999

This Is an Ad Starring a Puppet / LEVI STRAUSS & CO. "ID"

In 1999, a yellow puppet took over the world. Riding in a beat-up blue car, bobbing its head to a techno beat. When the police pull them over, it shows its ID, just like that. Human or puppet, both totally normal. Nobody ever bothered explaining the absurdity of it all.

You Never Know When It's Going to Happen / Lynx "24-7 – Because you never know when"

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Lynx | 24-7 – Because you never know when | 2017

You Never Know When It's Going to Happen / Lynx "24-7 – Because you never know when"

It's not just rewind. A man walks back the way he came, putting his clothes back on as he goes. Somewhere in the middle, it clicks — "oh, I see" — and your brain gets a little chill. There are plenty of ways to show love at first sight, but the ones that give you that lightbulb moment hit hardest.