Select Page

My Favourite Antoine Bardou-Jacquet Commercials

This is another in the globally popular ACES series of featuring commercial filmmakers and directors that I admire for their skills in bringing creative concepts, and storylines to enthralling life.

Antoine Bardou-Jacquet

Famed as the director of the Honda Accord ‘Cog’ commercial, hailed as the most awarded commercial in the history of advertising, Antoine Bardou-Jacquet, writer, graphic designer, and co-founder of French design and animation studio H5 in Paris, France, is a multi award-winning, feature and commercials filmmaker.

His impressive portfolio of film directing skill versatility, and cinematographic craftsmanship, covers a broad range of advertising genres and brand themes.

1. KIA Soul, This Or That

Advertising Agency: David & Goliath, Los Angeles, California, USA

Production and Animation Company: Partizan, Los Angeles, California USA

Post Production and VFX Studios, Framestore, Los Angeles, California, USA

The long running Kia Soul Hamsters campaign, of iconic fame by agency David & Goliath, featured of series of commercials by the advertising industry’s top film directors.

Included in the lineup of impressive talent, is filmmaker Antoine Bardou-Jacquet’s, Kia Soul ‘This or That’ commercial, with the music loving hamsters, in a memorable and highly entertaining scenario, showing off their street-cred to a soundtrack of Hip-Hop duo Black Sheep’s song “The Choice Is Yours”.

2. Renault, La Réinvention

Advertising Agency: Publicis Conseil, Paris, France

Production Company: Partizan, Paris, France

The Renault Automotive Company has teamed up with the French Rugby Federation, and  Rugby Union, to rally the nation’s support for the 2023 Rugby World Cup challenge that lies ahead.

France, the winners of the 2022 Six Nations Tournament competition, have never won a world title, and to bring home the cup for the fIrst time, will require the inherent ingenuity of reinvention, that provided France with its greatest victories.

The cinematic commercial directed by filmmaker Antoine Bardou-Jacquet, featuring a cameo of national team manager Raphaël Ibañez clad in armour, is a humorous scenario of France’s spirited evolution of sport through the ages. 

3. CANAL+, The Kitchen

Advertising Agency: BETC, Paris, France

Production Company: Partizan, Paris, France

Visual Effects Studio: Unit Image, Paris, France

Post Production Company: Royal Post, Paris, France

BETC’s ingeniously conceived ‘Masterchef’ analogy, to showcase the new menu of channels offered by French, pay-TV provider Canal+, highlights the fact, that like topnotch cuisine, great television requires the best ingredients.

Directed with great skill by filmmaker Antoine Bardou Jacquet, the superbly produced ‘Kichen’ commercial, of impressively crafted special effects, is a very effective and engagingly entertaining brand communication of ‘Great Channels Make Great Television’.

4. Monoprix, Humanity’s First Queue

Advertising Agency: Rosa, Paris, France

Production Company: Partizan, Paris, France

Post Production and VFX Studios: Mikros, Paris, France

Agency Rosa’s ‘Humanity’s First Queue’ commercial, for major French retail chain Monoprix, headquartered in Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine, France, near Paris, spearheaded the launch campaign of the fast-checkout Monoprix app.

Directed by filmmaker, Antoine Bardou-Jacquet, the superbly produced scenario, hilariously portrays queue-jumping, sometimes with fatal consequences, as being an innate tendency since prehistoric times.

Rosa’s uniquely conceived approach to retail genre advertising, is spectacularly entertaining to view.

5. TOTAL Excellium, Space Travellers

Advertising Agency: BETC, Paris, France

Production Company: Partizan, Paris, France

VFX, Animation and Motion Design Studio, Mathematics, Paris, France

The crew of spaceship, consisting of a ‘Frog Man’, a hairy ‘Wookie’, an intelligent Robot, and two pilots, touch down at an intergalactic TOTAL station, when they run out of fuel.

Directed by filmmaker Antoine Bardou-Jacquet, the cinematic scenario, of the crew’s humorous experiences of the TOTAL station’s hospitable offerings, are highly entertaining with its starring VFX characters, and impressive production values.

6. Honda Accord, The Cog

Advertising Agency: Wieden+Kennedy, London, UK

Production Company: Partizan Midi-Minuit, Paris, France

Directed by filmmaker Antoine Bardou-Jacquet, the Honda Accord ‘Cog’ commercial is regarded as one of the most groundbreaking and influential commercials of the 2000s, and received more awards from the television and advertising industries than any commercial in the history of automotive Advertising Communication.

Inspired by American cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer, and installation inventor, Rube Goldberg, Wieden+Kennedy’s creatively conceived scenario, took four months of pre-production planning, four days of filming, and over 100 takes before the perfect chain reaction outcome was achieved. 

The work was exacting. Some parts needed to be positioned with an accuracy of 1.6 millimetres, requiring filming sessions of seven hour durations.