BBDO Russia may have just created the most subversive parody ad of the year – well, perhaps second to Hillary Clinton’s. Plus, at its core is an idea so cunning it will quite possibly make you smile all day.

Every infomercial cliché possible has been lovingly worked into BBDO’s 40 second ad that explains how lawyer Semennikov Dmitry has turned a common illegal practice into a self-promotion.

In Russia, mobile cameras are used to find cars that are illegally parked. They rely on the car’s number plate for identification. So drivers cover part of their number plates with various things like scraps of paper, compact discs, maple leaves intending to argue that they “just ended up” concealing the number plate – to avoid a fine.

BBDO placed Semennikov Dmitry’s business card over one of the numbers on cars’ number plates instead. All number plates in Russia feature only those letters that the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets have in common, so BBDO placed the Cyrillic Я (ya or I’m) letter on one side of the card, and the lawyer’s contact information – on the other side.

Using the Я letter turned the plate’s number into a non-existing one and the cunning ploy underscored the lawyer’s ability to manage the driver’s litigation – without causing potential trouble for the owners.

Credits:

Agency: BBDO Russia Group

Chief creative officer: Nikolay Megvelidze 

Deputy creative director: Alexey Starodubov 

Junior art director: Arsen Mollakaev 

Strategic planning manager: Nikita Nikiforov 

Account manager: Alexandra Bichaeva 

Corporate and festival project manager: Ekaterina Garina 

Business development manager: Boris Sorokin 

Production company: Save As it Is

Executive Producers: Manu Meyer & Ivan Buralkin

Director: Alёsha Starodubov

DoP: Nikolay Rykunov, DOP