According to Neil McOstrich, to understand the success of Palmer Jarvis DDB’s recent Pine-Sol campaign (a possible contender at this year’s Bessies and winner of Campaign Gold at the 2001 Marketing Awards), one should look to diving or ski jumping – any contest that factors in a degree of difficulty.

‘People are recognizing they were not only good commercials, but they were good commercials that leapt off the diving board and intended to do a triple-twist and a backflip,’ says the PJ DDB creative director.

In fact, McOstrich recounts when untitled director Wayne Craig, who helmed the spots, recently showed his reel around in the U.S., no one believed Pine-Sol was a real campaign.

‘They’d be like, ‘That was really funny. That’s a great spec spot you did. But show me some real spots.’ I don’t think anything good has happened in this category for quite a while,’ says McOstrich.

The first spot, ‘Bad Aim,’ depicts a young boy peeing in the toilet. When he is called from the other room, the child turns to respond, spraying wide of the mark, all over the bathroom floor. The second spot, ‘Dog Tired,’ shows a dog lying on the kitchen table in the sun. Noticing his masters’ impending return to the house, the dog slinks beneath the table, as if he had never trespassed on the eating surface.

The spots, for the Clorox Company of Canada, were shot through untitled. Written for PJ DDB by Ben Weinberg, they were art directed by Shelly Weinreb and Marketa Krivy. Andrew Shulze was the agency producer while Peter Davis produced for untitled. Creative directors McOstrich, Dave Chiavegato and Rich Pryce-Jones supervised the project.

McOstrich recalls the agency’s approach to the original client strategy. ‘We essentially tried to redefine and carve out within this sort of nebulous world of what clean is – a clean that we could own.’

He explains: ‘For example, fun is as generic to beer as clean is to the cleaning category. Labatt’s ‘Out of the Blue’ said, ‘Spontaneous fun is the kind of fun we’re going to own.’

‘We basically went in and did some research. And what we discovered is this notion of the thorough clean being the ultimate form of clean. In other words, there’s the kind of clean when you’re living in a frat house and your friends are coming over to play poker. There’s a different kind of clean when your mother is coming over to visit. And basically, we set out to own this notion of the absolutely thorough clean.’

To accomplish this, PJ DDB attempted to look beyond the toilet and add a little humanity to a category that more often than not resorts to the ‘tired old tactics’ like ‘split screens with floor A and floor B.’

Says McOstrich: ‘When you understand the humanity of where the kid’s going to pee, we’re not only taking credit for the clean toilet but for the toilet experience in itself. It becomes completely clean. It’s the toilet plus two feet either way.’

When the spot was shown at this year’s Marketing Awards, McOstrich claims to have overheard someone ‘not connected to advertising’ whisper to her friend, ‘It’s so true.’ The statement had the creative director excited. ‘I almost felt I should mount that on a battle flag and take it back to the agency,’ he says.

The commercials, which are ‘moving business’ for Clorox, also represent what McOstrich calls ‘a plate tectonic shift’ at PJ DDB.

‘I think that commercial sends a very, very important signal. I call it a plate tectonic shift, because it was quite a massive one that caused tremors.’ McOstrich hopes this campaign, along with recent spots for Telus and Bud Light, will stop the whispers that his agency ‘creates for creativity’s sake.’

‘I just think it not only made a statement about Pine-Sol, I think it also made a statement about the type of company we have. We can work within the framework of any type of corporation and still do great creative.’

As for the Bessies, McOstrich confirms a win ‘would be important to me. So many people in the agency touched the product and sweated over the details of making that work,’ he says.

McOstrich applauds other agencies that have taken similarly tough categories and made them work. He cites ‘the AGF work that Y&R did’ as another example of ‘a really great campaign in a really tough category.’

‘We all know that a cannon ball is easier than a triple-gainer,’ he says. ‘And people who do that kind of work bring the level of advertising in Canada up a notch.’ *

-www.pjddb.com