By Wesley Wong
Chelsea is the name of a hip west-side neighborhood in Manhattan.
Apparently, it is also the name of a television advertising production
house. Judging from its New York address, it is probably named after
the neighborhood. However, there is no way of finding this out from
their minimalist website. Chelsea Pictures departs from the standard
model of business websites. You know, the usual navigation bar that
sports links such as "About us", "Investor relations",
and "Products and services". Instead, www.chelsea.com
consists of just three html pages. The first contains a silhouette
image of a man holding a briefcase, a roster of Chelsea Pictures'
directors, and contact information for their offices. The first link
on the page, "View New Work 2001", takes you to a second
page that lists about twenty of their most recent television ads sorted
by director. The other link on the main page, "Go to Production
League", takes you to a similar page, listing several commercials
under the banner "Production League of America". On either
of these pages, Clicking on the name of the ad opens a pop-up window,
which displays a streaming QuickTime clip of the commercial.
With little else to explore, I checked out each of the commercials
to try and get a sense of the firm's work. The first thing that struck
me was the quality of the streaming QuickTime. The resolution and
frame-rate of the video was very high, allowing me to appreciate the
clip without the annoying jitters and stutters common to Internet
video. They clearly put some time into optimizing these clips for
the web. The commercials on the page display an amazing range of style.
There is the conventional financial service commercial for Zurich
Financial, depicting a child being born, growing up, having children
of his own, and finally growing old, that ends with the slogan "Zurich
Financial - because life changes." While most of the ads are
of a more mature, serious tone, there are some playful ones. For example
there is an excellent Saturn ad that follows the party-hopping adventures
of three adolescents. Another interesting ad is one titled "Skateboarder"
for Bolt.com, which is shot in a documentary style showing a teen
trying to pull a difficult skateboarding move and wiping out. He gets
up and swears profusely, as his friends crack up hysterically, and
the commercial ends with "Bolt.com - don't hold back". This
is definitely a talented crew of directors, and the cinematography
of the clips is top-notch. Judging from the tone and coloring, many
of these commercials were probably shot on film.
Chelsea.com is definitely a cool site to check out if you are into
commercials (of course, www.adcritic.com
is also a must see). Personally, I love watching good commercials.
As more talented directors move into this space, television commercials
have been elevated to the status of an art form. Chelsea's web site,
which contains no company or marketing information except the commercials
themselves, forces us to focus on the commercials as art. Whereas
most commercials are still crude product descriptions, like most drug
and detergent commercials, many are becoming increasingly stylish,
elegant and subtle. Many car and beverage commercials, for example,
do not even touch on the product itself, but instead market a particular
attitude and lifestyle. Chelsea's web site is a similarly avant-garde
marketing tool.