If you’re wondering why Toronto bar patrons have been spontaneously breaking out into the chorus of ‘Good Morning, Good Morning’ from the original Singing in the Rain soundtrack, you need look no further than Taxi Advertising’s Alan Madill and Terry Drummond.

The creative team is responsible for the latest Viagra spot on TV, an ad that in one fell swoop takes the sex-joke raunchiness normally associated with the penis-proud drug out of the equation, and simultaneously pulls a fast one on the Canadian drug advertising regulators.

The result is a clever spot in which we see a happy man dancing his way to work in the morning smiling to the ‘Good Morning’ tune. We have no idea what’s being peddled until the concluding moment of the ad. The man steps into his workplace elevator invigorated as the Viagra logo appears on the screen. The not-so-subtle implication being that the gentleman has recently had his pipes cleaned – with the help of the now-famous little blue pill.

‘With Viagra, we didn’t want to do the conventional sex joke,’ says Drummond, ‘It’s a pure expression of the joy he feels, with no words and no voiceover pushing the message.’ The result is pure entertainment for the audience, something the duo is becoming more and more accustomed to producing at Taxi.

Veronica Piacek, team leader, Pfizer Canada, says, ‘They’ve worked on two of our campaigns. They listen to the client’s perspective and the business perspective very closely and stick to the briefs. Alan and Terry ended up creating a concept that easily met the tough Canadian guidelines for prescription drug advertising while coming up with a breakthrough idea that has performed very well for Pfizer.’

It’s only been a couple of years since Madill and Drummond teamed up at Taxi, which these days is often considered the most innovative agency in the country.

Madill studied at the Ontario College of Art & Design before joining Ranscon & Co. and then landing at Taxi. Drummond started copywriting at Academie Ogilvy in Montreal, moved on to Anderson (DDB) and left for Taxi two years ago.

As an art director, Madill says Taxi has allowed him ‘to work in an environment where the goal is the best end result. Both of us feel that we’ve never been in a place where we have had as much creative freedom, and that gives us even more incentive to push ourselves.’

‘Not everyone in the business enjoys the work as much as we do,’ adds Drummond, who also points out that the team’s work is open form, so to speak.

‘We don’t edit each other. Any idea is a good idea, then we come back and tear each other apart,’ says Madill jokingly.

Their compatibility clearly shines through on the Telus Mobility spots they have worked on together – a continuation of the ‘animal’ campaigns that have been so successful for Taxi.

Madill and Drummond have taken the Telus campaign to another level, says Zak Mroueh, creative director at Taxi. ‘The campaign has always been smart, but they embraced the brand essence, added to it, put their own signature on the spots – and have ended up producing some of the best ones.’

‘What’s great about Alan and Terry,’ says Rick Seifeddine, VP of communications for Telus Communications, ‘is the raw strength of their creative talent combined with their natural humility. They’re smart, fast, witty, and they’re not assholes. They make the process as pleasurable as the end result they produce.’

‘It has happened only a very few times in my short career, but in one recent case we walked into the editing suite, saw the ad, said ‘That’s great, excellent and left. It was a Nadia Commenici moment,’ adds Seifeddine, referring to the Romanian gymnast’s famous, perfect performance at the 1976 Montreal Olympics.

Seifeddine notes that ‘so often it is difficult to snuff out a crippling formality that seems to run through so much of the advertising world. Taxi seems to go about things with a Québécoise stroke of originality. That’s clear with Alan and Terry.’

To wit, the team has recently finished directing their first spot, an ad for Covenant House, a charity organization that helps keep kids off the street. Shot on Super 8, the scene opens with candles being lit on a birthday cake. As the shot opens up it is revealed that the cake belongs to a young girl who is living on the street. The tag: ‘Sadly, it’s our twentieth birthday.’ In itself the effort clearly reveals another dimension of Madill’s and Drummond’s work together: an ability to create and direct poignant material.

Mroueh says that while Drummond and Madill are very strong in their respective disciplines, they are also ‘a really special team in the sense that they have the right blend of strategic smarts and creative talents.

‘The guys have really gelled, which makes a CD’s job a lot easier. Taxi gives them permission to be great and not to be worried by a fear of failure. They take on any challenge. In my mind they’re one of the best teams in the country and can compete with anyone.

‘They will be CDs in the not-so-distant future.’