Guardian News and Media: We Own The Weekend

Here it is; the next instalment in The Guardian’s advertising output, once again masterminded by BBH London.

The campaign is led by a Tim Godsall-directed film starring Hugh Grant, which parodies a Jerry Bruckheimer movie trailer (incidentally the same agency/director partnership also released a huge AXE campaign today). We caught up with David Kolbusz, deputy ECD at BBH, to find out why Grant was a good choice, how hard it is to follow Three Little Pigs, and the quality of Godsall’s kissing technique.

Where did the initial idea for We Own The Weekend come from?

We were struggling with a way to do a big, loud promotional campaign about the Guardian Media Group's weekend papers because it's not a very Guardian thing to do. Creative, accounts, and strategy were all in a room - a little punch drunk and frustrated - when the idea to satirise loud promotional campaigns came up. It was a fruitful session.

Three Little Pigs was a tough ad to follow. Did that add pressure and did you consciously set out to make something completely different?

Full candour - I love the fact that it's completely different. No one really wants to repeat themselves. But we put the same amount of pressure on ourselves with every piece of work we do.  

Why did you think Tim Godsall was the right director for the film? What did he bring to the creative process that impressed you?

Tim Godsall is a brilliant director who immediately got the tone of the script and what we were trying to achieve. He's great with performance and humour, but at the same time his film work looks amazing. He's also a very good kisser. 

Why was Hugh Grant the right choice to star in it? Was he good to work with?

Mr. Grant has long been an outspoken critic of gutter press and in the wake of the Guardian breaking the phone hacking story, he seemed like an obvious choice. He was wonderful to work with and nailed it in under 10 minutes. Which makes one feel very bad about their own job performance.

What was the shoot like? Were there any particular challenges to contend with?

The timeline was the only real challenge. The campaign was conceived, written, bought, shot and finished in a little over a month. I'm currently writing these answers having not slept in about 36 hours. 

What more can we expect to see from the campaign?

There's press, poster, digital out of home, and other odds and ends. We had a lot of fun with the additional elements for the Three Little Pigs and we're aiming to do the same here. Our goal is to remind everyone how truly amazing the Guardian and Observer's weekend offerings truly are.