Telling more stories of people and their life goals, the latest phase took nearly three months of shooting, five scripts using three different directors in two countries - South Africa and Malaysia. It will be broadcast in 10 markets in Asia. The creative process started almost a year ago at a regional Caltex creative conference where all the creative teams from the various markets started writing stories that support Caltex's individual products and services. The resulting five commercials were culled from more than 30 ideas.
Said Glenn Weckerlin, Caltex global marketing director and general manager, brand: "We set the bar pretty high for this round of creative. These great spots are a result of a desire to tap into universal insights, but deliver with relevance to local markets and needs."
Brian Fisher, vice-president of director of client service at McCann added: "We (McCann and Caltex) both knew exactly what the brand mission and strategy was. Therefore we were focused in our effort, but perhaps more importantly, we intuitively knew the work would fit the brand needs and also excite the consumers."
Weckerlin said Caltex's brand strategy was based on the oil industry's unique niche of playing a "small but nonetheless important role in people's lives".
"In our advertising we try to portray that by showing how we provide a little something (life's little refills), as people get on with their day-to-day activities and pursuit of their dreams.
"Sticking to this concept will be critical to carving out a competitive advantage over the long term so we would not change as a result of a change in agency. In fact we made that very clear in conversation with DY&R during the transition and they wholeheartedly supported the strategy because they too saw it as differentiating," said Weckerlin.
To add local flavour to the commercials, a different taxi is used in each market in the Taxi Driver ad - a jeepney for the Philippines, mini vans for South Africa and a Mercedes-Benz for Singapore.
"It's one of the most complicated shoots I've ever managed," said producer Frances Tan.
"We had to re-shoot the same script with Asian, Caucasian and African talent ... trying to not only manage different talent, but left/right hand drive, whether markets were self serve or full serve at the petrol pumps; the logistics were a real drama."
The spots will run in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Cambodia, New Zealand, and South Africa on terrestrial and cable TV throughout 2003 and 2004.
As part of the realignment, the media brief was moved from Universal McCann to Mediaedge:cia.