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Lightning strikes

Idealog March/April 2007, page 48. Photograph by nz-sublime.com

Is it religion? Is it advertising? Is it, what? Kiwi company Exile Films is poised to perplex viewers world-wide with the launch of ‘Rodney the Air Healer’—a brand and advertising campaign for MTV. Rodney is a postmodern puzzling farce but maybe the real question is how did a Kiwi firm win the business?

Picture this. In the mindless hours when Kiwi travellers are in their northern hemisphere hotel rooms, flicking through TV channels in search of sleep, there’s something that registers in the noise. The channel is MTV. It’s an advertisement. Possibly. Or a documentary. Or something else, a reality TV show, maybe. The point is, it looks a bit like home. For example, that Commer van is driving down Auckland’s Southern Motorway, isn’t it? And the main guy, he’s got a Kiwi accent. Or not? It’s hard to tell. And there’s something about the humour. It’s a piss-take, surely? It somehow feels Kiwi.

Whatever it is, the story of Rodney the Air Healer—a barrel-bellied, New Age guru with tomato-sauce stigmata and diamond-encrusted fingers—is starting to puzzle viewers around the world. He may even be winning converts. And that’s just fine according to his creators, Auckland-based Exile Films. The mockumentary is arch and, even though it’s a global promotional exercise for MTV, it’s deliberately obscure in its branding. Rodney will be revealed in small segments on 53 MTV networks this quarter and on a companion website where users are encouraged to interact, posting pictures and joining the community. The only clue to the source is a line on the bottom right that says “spiritual guidance by MTV”.

One of the Rodney Heals spots on MTV. More videos on YouTube

The Rodney campaign may be a lesson in the mysteries of postmodern marketing, where less is certainly more, but what’s really puzzling is why MTV chose a small New Zealand outfit to make the latest in cutting-edge advertising. Is New Zealand really that hip?

Apparently yes. The connection is through Russian-New Yorker Ilya Rozhdestvensky—an advertising creative formerly with Modernista!, a Boston agency known for its lack of job titles and bold ideas; it was touted as ‘the one to watch’ by industry rags. MTV was the agency’s first client in 2000 and Rozhdestvensky had worked on a campaign to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the youth channel. Over the years Rozhdestvensky also visited New Zealand to shoot advertisements and fell in love with its rare combination of laid-back lifestyle and commercial creativity. “I am constantly amazed at the depth of creative talent in New Zealand. That and the two degrees of separation make it very enjoyable to do business here.”

And, of course, the world really is flat. The majority of Exile’s customers are offshore. When Idealog visits, Rozhdestvensky is in a three-way Skype conversation with Sydney, New York and Chicago.

Shortly after arriving at Exile, Rozhdestvensky was approached by MTV creative director Cristián Jofré to develop ideas for a global campaign that reflected the current ‘mental trends’ of teens worldwide. The Exile creative machine swung into action with one of the directors, Gaysorn Thavat, a Chinese-Thai from West Auckland, penning three scripts. It was the story of Rodney, the air-guitarist who finds he has special powers and creates a cult, that hit the button at MTV’s London HQ.

Thavat built an entire Rodney cult, complete with poignant scriptural quotes and spiritual rites. “MTV is a cult, it’s a network as the spirit of youth. In a way creating a character like Rodney created a self-perpetuating campaign, which religion is,” she says. The campaign opens with a three-minute development of Rodney’s transition from air-guitarist, through a miracle, to his new role as guru of his own cult. Thavat’s direction helped actor Tim Raby develop a ‘deep and sensitive’ character, with bad hair and an excruciating wardrobe of spandex pants and kaftans. While the setting is New Zealand—look for the woolly jumpers and the Westie architecture—the spots are universal.

RodneyHeals.com

Visit RodneyHeals.com and you may feel the need to join the air healing movement. You can read your aura, send a request for healing, meet other devotees and sign up for more. The number of converts were low when Idealog visited but there does seem to be the beginning of a following. Some may even be serious: “I have been listening to whale music before I go to bed and feel healed,” says one. Others seem, well, less so. “I am ready to commit myself body and soul to you. I want to have your babies,” writes another.

It was essential for the joke to be carried right through for it to be convincing, says one of the creators Gasorn Thavat. She should know. “I grew up in Titirangi in the 1970s, considered by some to be the birth place of New Age. New Age religion is an incredibly interesting idea that hasn’t been exploited.” Has now.

“This is not New Zealand, mocking New Zealand culture, it is every suburb everywhere,” insists Rozhdestvensky. “This campaign is truly global. It will be seen in Poland, in Chile.” They’ve even created a series with no dialogue for non-English-speaking markets like China.

Convincing MTV that Rodney was their man was much tougher. Exile’s efforts won over MTV for two reasons. Simply yelling at the MTV audience that MTV is cool is, well, pretty damn uncool. Doing cool is being cool, so Exile’s mockumentary ideas embodied the very message MTV wants to convey: even its ads are entertaining. “Rodney is a Monty Python of MySpace,” says Rozhdestvensky. “For our target demographics this is exactly what is funny about it—they see it as a transparent attempt to sell them Rodney, but essentially it makes them giggle about all these parent-like people being into Yoga, New Age and MySpace. Needless to say, we are ‘selling’ them the fact that MTV is still the coolest, since it’s not the MTV that is on MySpace but Rodney.”

The second reason Exile’s ideas appealed to MTV is the interactivity. Rozhdestvensky says that even a year ago an online campaign would be considered as an additional, broadcast-supporting venue. “Within the last six months things changed so fast that, for us and for the client, the interactive campaign became the destination and the broadcast campaign the venue to promote it.”

The shift to the Internet may seem unsurprising, given the 140 million MySpace pages. But you’ve got to remember that MTV is still overwhelmingly a television brand—or was until now. The Internet really is changing everything. What remains is the power of great ideas. “The nature of storytelling hasn’t changed,” says Exile owner Ian Gibbons. “People who recognise the importance of storytelling, the way that the story unfolds to create beautifully crafted pieces, there is a great future in that.”

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