Taking risks. Yep, you can do that in a spec ad. Daniel Titz and Dorian Lebherz took a risk in 2015 – and again in 2016. Those risks made them famous. But then again, the work was brilliant. Lachy Banton, I wish I’d done them too.

Remember what life was like before the pandemic? Me neither. It’s like trying to remember a dream; the more you try to focus on it the further away it seems to slip, like trying to hold onto a wriggling fish.

The specific year I’m trying to remember is 2015, the year that film students, Daniel Titz and Dorian Lebherz, released Dear Brother, their epic spec ad for Johnnie Walker. As more memories of 2015 flood back, peppered within the global threat of terrorism, the shadow of MH370 and the giddy idea of a world without restrictions is the thought, “f**k, this is really bloody good!”

The 90-second spot is a masterpiece of brand storytelling. I watched it over and over again, that was until, the following year Daniel and Dorian gave me something else to watch obsessively, The ABC of Death, another spec ad but this time for Volvo.

Sure, The Stable wrote about this specific spot in 2016. But it’s now 2022 and to be honest, I think we all need a delightful jaunt down memory lane. And what better lane to choose than this spot set in a Tim-Burton-meets-Wes-Anderson town where death is stalking the townsfolk?

It’s just so gloriously single-minded: Volvo’s autonomous braking is like cheating death. In a world where phrases like, “You can’t say that or show this,” and “It might offend someone,” get uttered with increasing authority, this spot is a bastion of everything that’s right and true about advertising. It treats the audience as someone who has a rich and complex inner world. In other words, an equal.

I think it gets away with showing the un-showable for a few reasons. Firstly, that song! [Chef’s kiss] It provides a certain elegance and levity to the macabre. Then, with expert precision, small comedic details are applied (a shoe drop here, a playful jab of a shovel there) to each scene to guide our emotional journey.

Similar to their debut spec ad, this one is also a masterclass in using strong emotion to perform a metaphorical craniotomy and tattoo a brand onto the brain of our audience. It’s for all these reasons and more that no matter how many times I watch this spot, I’ll always think “God dammit, I wish I did that!”