Idle Free Calgary: Unacceptable

Get Turned Off. For Good.

Calgary is the corporate heart of Canada's fossil fuel industry. In the past few years, the city has enacted a number of initiatives to improve the city's environmental image. Unnecessary vehicle idling accounts for an enormous amount of wasted resources at significant cost to individuals as well as the city's air quality and overall carbon footprint. Cold-climate cities like Calgary face the additional challenge of altering driver habits and behaviour when temperatures can hover for weeks in the sub-zero range. Warmist or anti-Warmist arguments aside, the premise that needless vehicle idling in large metropolitan areas exacts a heavy toll on every citizen's overall quality of life set the stage for portraying the practice in the same light as other socially aberrant or unacceptable behaviours - like urinating in public. The benignly upbeat tone and manner of the "portrayal" of ordinary people obliviously relieving themselves in a variety of public venues is an intentional simile for the equally casual and benign manner in which people idle their vehicles as they go about their daily lives. The 'carefree' portrayal and whimsical 'Marie Antoinette' soundtrack stand in deliberate and marked contrast to the simple and disarmingly direct message conveyed by the voice and closing graphics. Like smoking, drinking and driving, spousal abuse and host of other 'no-longer-socially-acceptable' behaviours, needless vehicle idling is fast becoming worthy of the same social 'pariah' status.

Advertising Agency: JOE Media Group, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Creative Director: Christopher Heatherington
Art Director: Dwayne Smolnicky
Copywriter: Christopher Heatherington
Photographer: Craig Wrobleski
Director: Philip Kates
Producer: Matt Gillespie
DOP: Craig Wrobleski
Producer/Production Manager: Sue Hutch
Production Coordinator: Missy Vanaas
Set Production Assistant: Brett Ferster
Camera Assistant: Steve Sebert
Gaffer: Rob Turko
Best Boy: Keith Marion
Generator Operator: Nevin Merrels
Key Grip: Mark Woodgate
Grip: Danny Cougil
Art Assistant: Katie Kidd
Art Production Assistant: Inken Richter
Locations: Darryl Solly
Catering: Margie Hope
Published: March 2010