My Favourite Bart Timmer Commercials
This is another in the globally popular ACES series of featuring commercial film directors that I admire for their dedicated craftsmanship in bringing creative concepts and storylines to filmic life that enthrall viewers and motivate well-earned accolades from the Advertising Communications industry.
Bart Timmer
After graduating from the Film Academy in Holland, Bart worked as a production assistant before venturing into filmmaking and directing commercials.
Known for his storytelling expertise, careful attention to detail, timing and great use of filmic humour, Bart Timmer has become one of the most sought after commercial directors in the Netherlands.
1. CANAL Plus, The Commentator
Advertising Agency: BETC, Paris, France
Bart Timmer directed this humourous story about a sports commentator that becomes so over-excited that he becomes spellbound in a ‘still-frame’ mental state.
The commercial to promote 15 sports channels for CANAL+, a French Premium Pay TV Channel is a metaphoric and literal ‘scream’ to view.
2. CANAL Plus, Fuel For Fans
Advertising Agency: BETC, Paris, France
CANAL+ is the most important premium pay TV channel in France. It specialises in football event coverage and movies and has over 13 million subscribers.
Directed by Bart Timmer, ‘Fuel for Fans’ is an effective expression of the excitement a great game elicits from football lovers. It is an inventively lateral idea, visually very creative and a fun commercial to watch.
3. VW Tiguan Trailer Assist, Laughing Horses
Adverting Agency: Grabarz & Partner, Hamburg, Germany
Directed by Bart Timmer, this amusing and very watchable commercial was launched on YouTube and it rapidly went viral to become Volkswagen Germany’s most successful online commercial debut of all time motivating 40 million views and 69,000 likes.
The remarkable online achievement resulted in the decision to flight the commercial on TV where it was equally successful and it went on to win a bevy of awards from The One Show and New York Festivals.
4. Centraal Beheer Achmea, Acupuncture
Advertising Agency: DDB, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
The ‘Acupuncture’ commercial for The Dutch Insurance Company based in Apeldoorn, The Netherlands, is one of my all time favourites from their long-running ‘Just Phone Apeldoorn’ campaign.
Directed by Bart Timmer, this 2007 New York Festivals Gold Winner and Cannes Lion Winner, is brilliantly enacted and very entertaining
5. CANAL Digital, The Silver Hand
Advertising Agency: Try/Apt, Oslo, Norway
This amusing commercial for the Scandinavian Pay-TV and Internet Service Provider is based on the human insight of feeling like a social outcast when you miss a cult TV series and can’t participate in any discourse or sensible reaction to the show everyone is talking about.
The entertainingly exaggerated story of alienation is skillfully directed by Bart Timmer who elicits a strong performances from the cast.
6. CANALPlay, Vampire
Advertising Agency: Buzzman, Paris, France
CANALPlay is a French video on demand Internet service. Directed by Bart Timmer, this cinematic commercial is brought to life by a stellar performance from John Malkovich as a vampire Bank Manager who seems to have overcome any problems of operating during daylight hours.
7. Citroen C4 Picasso, Can’t Wait For The Road
Advertising Agency: Les Gaulois. Paris, France
Based on the insight of how stressful family holiday’s can turn out to be, this humorous commercial, directed by Bart Timmer, once again is a demonstration of his storytelling and casting expertise.
That feeling that ‘enough is enough’ and just wanting to hit the road back to one’s comfort zone, I can easily relate to with a knowing smile.
8. Heineken, Nature’s Wonder
Advertising Agency: TBWA Neboko, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Bart Timmer directed this amusing take on the wonder of nature’s Northern Lights occurrences known as Aurora Borealis by revealing the’ true’ cause of the phenomenon.
The original soundtrack composition was created by Massive Music sound and music design studio, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
9. Double A Paper, Not The Same
Advertising Agency: Buzzman, Paris, France
Bart Timmer’s directional skills brought this clever and amusing ‘paper is paper’ visual analogy to entertaining life for rewarding viewing.
The focused, single-minded consumer benefit is illustrated with memorable communication efficacy.