Emerald Nuts of California caught the attention of the American public at the 2005 Superbowl, with an exaggerating Dad, a white unicorn, Santa Claus and the Easter bunny. A father and daughter are sitting on the couch watching the big game on television. The daughter asks, “Daddy can I have some Emerald Nuts?” Dad responds, “Honey if you have an Emerald Nut unicorns will disappear forever.”
All of a sudden the music starts and the camera swings round to a white unicorn who says, “Ah that’s not true Jim.” Back in the lounge Santa says, “Yeah, saying I’d never come back ’cause she ate your Emerald cashews? Jim, come on!” On the sofa beside Jim is the Easter Bunny in a waist coat, who says, “Or if you touch those Emerald Nuts the Easter Bunny gets whacked? (laughs) What was that about?” Jim has no choice. He pours some nuts into his hand and passes them over. The super: “They’re Kind of Hard to Share.” The spot finishes with hands holding each of the varieties, with the logo of Emerald of California. Click on the image below to play the video.
Emerald Nuts first caught the imagination of viewers with television commercials focusing on the first letters E and N. The web site provides three of those adverts, ‘Egomanical Normans’, ‘Egyptian Navigators’, and ‘Electromagnetic Navigators’.
Following the Super Bowl, Emerald Nuts launched a microsite, AngryLeprechaun.com. featuring the character that didn’t make the cut.
Credits
The Goodby Silverstein & Partners team included creative director Jeffrey Goodby, art director Steve Yee, copywriter Dan Rollman, and agency producer Elizabeth O’Toole.
The ‘Exaggerating Dad’ spot was directed by duo Speck/Gordon (Will Speck and Josh Gordon) via Omaha Pictures, with director of photography Anthony Wolberg, producer Mary Ann Marion and executive producer Eric Stern. Speck/Gordon are now with with Furlined.
The Emerald Nuts ad was edited by Haines Hall at Spot Welders with assistant editor Ted Felter. Sound was designed there as well.
Special effects and VFX were developed by a team at The Syndicate, including Kenny Solomon, Richard Mann and Kevin Prendville.
Animation was developed by Michael Killen and Jim Kreitzburg at Animal.
Music was composed by Michael Sherwood at Elias Arts. Audio mix was engineered by John Bolen and produced by at PLAY.
Actors
Dad: Bruce Nozick
Daughter: Abagail Price
Unicorn: Nicole Pallovici
Santa: Sherman Howard
Bunny: Craig Mangan (Goodby Silverstein Creative)
The Syndicate used Discreet Flame to track the rabbit head onto the puppet body and to further manipulate the head’s facial features. For Santa Claus, the dialogue was changed after the shoot, so a mouth from another Santa take was tracked onto the actor and then manipulated to match. The unicorn was an actual horse, filmed on the living room set. Its mouth manipulation, nostril flares, cheek puffs and eye movement were all achieved through animation. (Post, February 7 2005)