Chris Pratt lies incessantly about TravisMathew’s history in comical new ads
Apparel brand explains its offbeat anti-heritage campaign with Imagine Entertainment and director Jim Jenkins.
Hollif
To script the spots, Imagine worked with a pair of well-known advertising comedy writers—Ian Reichenthal, co-creator of the original Skittles “Blank the Rainbow” campaign, and Dave Canning, whose credits include a lot of ESPN comedy work. Gavin Cutler of MackCut was the editor.
“We liked the idea that Chris Pratt has seen all these other brand histories in commercials over the years and just decided on his own, without telling anyone, that this is what the campaign should be,” said Reichenthal. “The problem is, when you make stuff up on the fly, it can get really crazy really quickly. So the story is he was fired and the brand decided to air the spots anyway with a disclaimer. In retrospect, maybe that logic doesn’t quite hold up, but it’s too late now.”
Reichenthal said the spots had to be tightly scripted since they were all shot in one take and had to fit to time. “But we also figured we’d be idiots not to leave room for Chris Pratt to ad lib,” he added. In the end, Pratt came up with the idea for the “Two First Names” spot, and the ending was unscripted.
