Dixie: Germs

Description
------------------------------------
“You should not share your germs, just share your toys,” is the way one young boy succinctly sums up the problem of hygiene in this delightful new spot in which kids do all the talking, delivering a message about disposable drinking cups in a way that is funny, poignant, insightful and true.

Creative Commentary
------------------------------------
STORY's Bob Ebel has been perfecting using real kids (non-actors) throughout the 30-plus years of his career as the advertising industry’s consummate director of children. “Our approach to working with kids has a history of selling,” Ebel says. “Consumers connect to the honesty of our kids.”

When Ebel met with the agency’s creative team to discuss the project, his first suggestion was that they toss out the script. He’s a firm believer in allowing kids to speak for themselves in front of the camera. It results in more genuine performances and yields golden moments that simply can’t be anticipated or planned. Scripted spots often come off as staged or stilted by comparison. As Ebel puts it, “Most kids spot are written by adults and it shows.”

“It was a feat to convince our clients that we didn't need a script, but they bought into the idea because of our collective experience with Bob,” added Eric Mower & Associates creative supervisor Chad Wall. “And just as I said from the beginning, no copywriter could write this script. Only Bob could pull it from the children.”

Of course, creating the conditions where golden moments can happen requires hard work, careful preparation and a healthy dose of child psychology. For Ebel, it all begins with casting. He’ll spend hours and meet with dozens of young actors in search of those few who are both perfectly suited to the storyboard and meet his very strict definition of “Ebelkids.” “We want kids who are curious, kids who are sponges, kids with personality,” he observes.

Surprisingly, none of the kids featured in the Dixie ad had appeared in a commercial before. Yet, each of them fairly bubbles with charm and character, while retaining the sense of being the kid next door.

Ebel’s prep work hardly ends there. To get the kids ready for the shoot, he sent them home with a children’s book on germs. He wanted them to read it with their parents so that when they arrived on the set, each one would imagine him- or her-self as a bona fide germ expert.

He then turned himself into the perfect foil. Ebel had a make-up person transform him into a veritable germ factory, covering his hands and face with grime. He then sat down with each kid and shared with them his unorthodox views on germs, claiming that he rarely washed and never brushed his teeth. The kids were horrified. The cameras rolled and a spot was born.

“They thought I was a nut case,” Ebel recalls, “and they began educating me.”

Some of the spot’s most precious shots are of the kids reacting to the dirt beneath Ebel’s fingernails. And they began peppering him with facts and advice, “Germs are really little!” “They want to get inside you and bite you.” “No one likes germs on your hands, no one.” Again, funny, but true. “Who could write that?” wonders Ebel.

Letting kids be kids sounds like a simple formula, but to pull it off as Ebel does for Dixie requires a master’s touch. “We worked hard to find great characters to deliver the Dixie story in a simple and heartfelt way,” he says. “That’s why this spot is different from most.”