Anticipation (Guinness)
Encyclopedia
Anticipation is an award-winning Irish
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...

 advertisement launched by Guinness plc in 1994 to promote Guinness
Guinness
Guinness is a popular Irish dry stout that originated in the brewery of Arthur Guinness at St. James's Gate, Dublin. Guinness is directly descended from the porter style that originated in London in the early 18th century and is one of the most successful beer brands worldwide, brewed in almost...

-brand draught
Draught beer
Draught beer is beer served from a cask or a pressurised keg.-History of draught:Until Joseph Bramah patented the beer engine in 1785, beer was served directly from the barrel and carried to the customer. The Old English word for carry was dragen which developed into a series of related words,...

 stout
Stout
Stout is a dark beer made using roasted malt or barley, hops, water and yeast. Stouts were traditionally the generic term for the strongest or stoutest porters, typically 7% or 8%, produced by a brewery....

. The advert, which appeared in print, posters
Billboard (advertising)
A billboard is a large outdoor advertising structure , typically found in high traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertisements to passing pedestrians and drivers...

, and cinema and television
Television advertisement
A television advertisement or television commercial, often just commercial, advert, ad, or ad-film – is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization that conveys a message, typically one intended to market a product...

 spots, was produced by Irish advertising agency
Advertising agency
An advertising agency or ad agency is a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients. An ad agency is independent from the client and provides an outside point of view to the effort of selling the client's products or services...

 Arks, was directed by Richie Smyth and starred the relatively unknown Irish actor Joe McKinney
Joe McKinney
Joe McKinney is an Irish stage, screen/television actor and voice-over artist.Dublin-born McKinney trained and worked as a hairdresser for four years, before joining fringe theatre...

, as 'Dancing Man', the barman was played by Londoner Gordon Winter. It was the final part of the "Guinness Time" advertising campaign
Advertising campaign
An advertising campaign is a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme which make up an integrated marketing communication...

, which had been running in Ireland since the late 1980s.

The piece was hugely successful, increasing Guinness' sales, market share and brand awareness figures. However, controversy arose following claims of plagiarism raised by British director Mehdi Norowzian
Mehdi Norowzian
Mehdi Norowzian is a British director who has directed two films: Leo starring Joseph Fiennes and Elizabeth Shue, and Killing Joe , which starred Daniel Bliss...

, who launched an unsuccessful lawsuit in 1998 seeking remuneration for the use of techniques and style from his 1992 short film Joy.

Sequence

The low-budget ad featured only two characters: a patron of an unidentified pub
Public house
A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...

 and the barman serving him. The patron (McKinney) orders a pint of Guinness stout and, while waiting for the pint to be poured, carries out a series of quirky dancing movements with the settling pint in the foreground, to the bemusement of the barman. The piece ends with the patron taking his first sip of the freshly poured pint overlaid by the Guinness advertising slogan
Advertising slogan
Advertising slogans are short, often memorable phrases used in advertising campaigns. They are claimed to be the most effective means of drawing attention to one or more aspects of a product. A strapline is a British term used as a secondary sentence attached to a brand name...

 "No time like Guinness Time". The advert is set to Guaglione by Perez Prado
Perez Prado
Dámaso Pérez Prado was a Cuban bandleader, musician , and composer. He is often referred to as the 'King of the Mambo'.His orchestra was the most popular in mambo...

, and makes heavy use of jump cutting from a static camera to allow the dancer to make a series of movements that could not be achieved in reality.

Reception

The distinctive jump cut editing techniques of Anticipation won the commercial a degree of critical acclaim and several awards from within the advertising industry, including the 1995 Institute of Creative Advertising & Design award for editing
Film editing
Film editing is part of the creative post-production process of filmmaking. It involves the selection and combining of shots into sequences, and ultimately creating a finished motion picture. It is an art of storytelling...

, and a Golden Shark award at the Kinsale
Kinsale
Kinsale is a town in County Cork, Ireland. Located some 25 km south of Cork City on the coast near the Old Head of Kinsale, it sits at the mouth of the River Bandon and has a population of 2,257 which increases substantially during the summer months when the tourist season is at its peak and...

 International Advertising Festival.

The success of the campaign led Guinness to re-broadcast it in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 in 1995, as a transition between the "The Man With the Guinness" campaign, which had just concluded with Chain, and its new "Black and White" campaign, still in development.

As a result of its featuring in the spot, Perez Prado's Guaglione reached the Number 1 spot in the Irish music charts, and Number 2 in the British Top 40.

Lawsuit

In 1992, British director Mehdi Norowzian
Mehdi Norowzian
Mehdi Norowzian is a British director who has directed two films: Leo starring Joseph Fiennes and Elizabeth Shue, and Killing Joe , which starred Daniel Bliss...

 submitted a show reel containing a number of short examples of his work to several prospective employers, including the Irish advertising agency Arks Ltd., in the hopes of being taken on to direct one or more of their commercials. Included on the reel was a short piece entitled Joy, which was shot using a static camera on a London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 rooftop and comprised a jump cut sequence of a man performing an extended dance of exuberation against a plain canvas background.

Arks Ltd. were contracted by Guinness to produce an advertisement to run in Ireland. Among the ideas proposed was one based on a scene from the cinematic version
The Snapper (film)
The Snapper is a 1993 Irish television film which was directed by Stephen Frears and starred Tina Kellegher, Colm Meaney and Brendan Gleeson. The film is based on the novel by Irish writer Roddy Doyle, about the Rabbitte family and their domestic adventures.- Plot :Young Sharon Curley becomes...

 of Roddy Doyle
Roddy Doyle
Roddy Doyle is an Irish novelist, dramatist and screenwriter. Several of his books have been made into successful films, beginning with The Commitments in 1991. He won the Booker Prize in 1993....

's novel, The Snapper, where a man rushes into a pub to celebrate the birth of his grandson with a pint of Guinness. The artistic director at Arks, thinking on possible ways to build on the concept, recalled Norowzian's submitted reel and came up with a script and storyboard based on Joy to present to Guinness. The idea was accepted, and Arks approached Norowzian to direct the commercial. Norowzian refused, as he was unwilling to simply "commercialise" an old idea, and wanted to create something new. Rebuffed, the agency then took on Richard Smyth as director, urging him to create something "with an atmosphere broadly similar to that portrayed in Joy". Feeling that the original storyboard was too close to Joy, a new one was prepared. The result was Anticipation.

Following the broadcast of the television spot in 1994, Norowzian lodged a complaint and ultimately a lawsuit
Lawsuit
A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...

 against Arks Ltd. and Guinness, claiming that Anticipation breached his copyrights and accusing the agency of passing off
Passing off
Passing off is a common law tort which can be used to enforce unregistered trademark rights. The tort of passing off protects the goodwill of a trader from a misrepresentation that causes damage to goodwill....

. The plaintiff's claim for copyright infringement
Copyright infringement
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.- "Piracy" :...

 were based on a passage in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 , also known as the CDPA, is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which received Royal Assent on 15 November 1988. It reformulates almost completely the statutory basis of copyright law in the United Kingdom, which had, until then, been...

 defining a dramatic work as including "recordings of a work of dance or mime", and that Anticipation was, or included, a copy of a substantial part of Joy. The case reached the High Court
High Court of Justice
The High Court of Justice is, together with the Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, one of the Senior Courts of England and Wales...

 in 1997, where the claim of passing off was dropped. On July 17, 1998, Justice Rattee rendered his judgment that the jump cutting techniques used in Joy produced something qualitatively different from a recording of a dance or mime routine and that, as such, Joy was not in itself a dramatic work. It was therefore defined as an entrepreneurial work, a status which confers protection over only the physical recording of a work rather than the work itself. He also ruled that Anticipation did not reproduce either the whole or part of Joy.

The decision was appeal
Appeal
An appeal is a petition for review of a case that has been decided by a court of law. The petition is made to a higher court for the purpose of overturning the lower court's decision....

ed, but while the Court of Appeal unanimously held that the content of a film (including the use of film and editing techniques) could enjoy copyright protection as a dramatic work, the presiding Justices ruled that Anticipation did not significantly copy any portion of Joy and dismissed the case. Ultimately, Norowzian was ordered to pay £200,000 in legal costs. As a result of the case, the Institute of Contemporary Arts
Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Institute of Contemporary Arts is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. It is located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch...

 called for reform of copyright law in the United Kingdom.

Legacy

Actor Joe McKinney
Joe McKinney
Joe McKinney is an Irish stage, screen/television actor and voice-over artist.Dublin-born McKinney trained and worked as a hairdresser for four years, before joining fringe theatre...

 spent 1994–6 making personal appearances around Europe publicising Guinness. The lifestyle became too hectic and he gave up alcohol in 1997. He found it difficult to secure other roles due to typecasting
Typecasting (acting)
In TV, film, and theatre, typecasting is the process by which a particular actor becomes strongly identified with a specific character; one or more particular roles; or, characters having the same traits or coming from the same social or ethnic groups...

 as "the Guinness man", spending time in the U.S. where the ad had not been broadcast.

As one of the most recognisable Guinness advertisements of the 1990s, Anticipation has been mimicked or parodied in a number of more recent Guinness campaigns, including the Irish Waiting spot in 2004 promoting cans
Beverage can
A beverage can is a tin can designed to hold a specific portion of a beverage. Beverage cans are made of tin-plated steel or aluminium.- History :...

 of Guinness draught beer, and the British Eskimo commercial, which was part of an extended campaign promoting Guinness Extra Cold in Summer 2004 and 2005.

In March 2009, Guinness announced that Anticipation would be aired again as part of a "Classic Ads" campaign to mark the brewery's 250th anniversary.

External links

  • Anticipation on DailyMotion
    Dailymotion
    Dailymotion is a video sharing service website, headquartered in the 18th arrondissement, Paris, France. According to Comscore, Dailymotion is the second largest video site in the world after YouTube....

  • Eskimo on Esphinx.com
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