An alternate world, part 1(?)

There is a great piece over at Ad Age about the work TBWA has done for Starburst and Skittles. Essentially, the author implies TBWA has crafted an alternate world for their products to inhabit. A world where the absurd is commonplace. The following commercial is a great example of this.



The Ad Age article points out how neither of the two guys approached by the Little Lad react in a way which acknowledges how obviously out of place the Dickensian character is. It is implied he is not out of place. Sure he's odd, but he's not so out of context the other two are overtly taken aback by his behavior.

Starburst is not the only product to receive this treatment from our friends at TBWA. You might remember this Skittles commercial:



Or this one:



They're brilliant in they all inhabit the same world. TBWA has set up an alternate reality for these products to exist in. The beauty is it's the same world. For all we know it might run tangental to ours. Perhaps a Skittles leak is formed when someone in our reality inevitably spills a pound of Skittles in a movie theater.

The point is TBWA has taken Adam Savage's quote "I reject your reality and substitute my own" to a literal level with this work for Starburst and Skittles. The question now is will they maintain this alternate reality and use it to engage their consumers?

That's how you fix it?

[Ad Age]