Advertising Review: How to spice up a campaign

Polaroid

Bartle Bogle Hegarty

There are ads that rip off movie blockbusters, ads that rip off pop videos, ads that rip off art. Every now and then, there is one that manages to pull it off.

The setting here is the gloomy interior of Harrow School. From a vantage point in the rafters, the director, Harald Zwart, directs our gaze on to a group of girls led by an agitated nun, snaking towards the headmistress's office to be disciplined for some unspeakable crime. You know it's bad when the deputy looks at the incriminating s; she gags and turns away.

A storm is brewing, and there's a sound of clashing thunder. Mother Superior points to the door and the five are expelled. As the heavy oak doors close behind them, their identity is revealed. "What are we going to do now?" Scary Spice wonders aloud.

OK, the Spice Girls are spreading themselves almost as thinly as Harry Enfield and Martin Clunes. Yet, for once, the association works. The ad is part of 's "Live for the Moment" campaign, which has featured a stressed office worker who walks out of his job, but not before leaving a of an unmentionable body part on the desk of his female boss.

The product this time is a throw-away camera called (surprise, surprise) the Spicecam. The commercial is neatly paced and stylishly shot. Janet Henfrey is a natural Mother Superior - she was the dour school teacher in Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective. And, even better, the Spice Girls get only one line.

Meg Carter