[ISEA94] Artist Statement: Sara Miles — Smirnoff ‘Message in a Bottle’

Artist Statement 

Smirnoff – Message in a Bottle (1992)
Published on YouTube by MullenLowe Group

Description: A waiter carries a tray around a cruise liner, the camera views scenes through the bottle of Smirnoff as he walks, putting a whole new perspective on life aboard ship.

Director: Tarsem Singh
Art director: John Merriman
Copywriter: Chris Herring
Agency: Lowe, London, UK
Advertiser: United Distillers & Vintners

Smirnoff – “Message in a Bottle” (UK, 1993)
Published on YouTube by Praveen Ramavath

Title: Smirnoff – “Message in a Bottle”
Brand: Smirnoff
Campaign: ‘Reflection’ – Smirnoff
Campaign: The Difference is Clear – Smirnoff
Country: UK
Agency: Lowe Howard-Spink (London, United Kingdom)
Year: 1993
Director: Vaughan Arnell & Anthea Benton (Lewin & Watson, London)
Advertiser: United Distillers & Vintners
After 1992’s award-winning “Message in a Bottle” commercial for Smirnoff, directed by Tarsem, London’s Lowe Howard-Spink is back with another edition of its glass booze game in a new cinema spot. While the effects-driven “Message” showed the world of a cruise ship transformed through the view of a Smirnoff bottle, this year’s spot takes place at an exotic wedding banquet.

When a fellow sits down to a bottle of Smirnoff, he’s aghast when he sees the bride, who is innocently kissing the groom, change into a lusty vampire biting her victim. Sailors ogling a sexy woman appear to be vultures and a fat, bald man with a handlebar mustache morphs into a walrus. Finally when the man looks at his reflection in a silver tray, he jumps back in horror at the image of himself as Satan. [source: You Tube]

  • Sara Miles, The Mill, UK. In 1990, Robin Shenfield and Pat Joseph opened The Mill in Soho, London. Starting as a visual effects house for the advertising industry, it was the first VFX company in Europe to use exclusively digital methods. [source: Wikipedia] themill.com