Amazon's Alexa Is Helpful Even in the Middle of an Epic Death Scene

Let’s say you’re watching a Game of Thrones-esque fantasy blockbuster but can’t quite follow the action because you’re caught up in some less-than-fantastic household drudgery. Like ironing.

As we learn in Droga5’s funny film below, Amazon’s Alexa stands ready to help, even if it’s a bit exasperating for the slain elf-prince and his long-suffering elf-maiden—in the first global standalone campaign for the voice assistant.

Hey, cyclops! Keep an eye on those elves, or you’ll get a mace in the back of the head!

In a second spot, which broke in the U.K. over the summer, some dude in a sun lounger urges Amadeus-era opera singers to perform more upbeat selections:

Yeah, that aria’s waaay better now.

Biscuit Filmworks director Andreas Nilsson weaves visually engaging narratives that captivate the eye, with just enough mystery to keep us watching until the end. The spots also speak to our deepening relationship with media and technology. We increasingly put ourselves in the picture by controlling various aspects of the images and music we stream. Alexa facilitates and simplifies such endeavors.

If the themeline “A voice is all you need” sounds familiar, that’s because it often appears in ads for Amazon Music.

The global work targets the millions of folks who haven’t experienced voice technology, demonstrating that “your wish is Alexa’s command, and there aren’t many that she cannot fulfill. It’s like your own personal genie in a box,” says Droga5 executive creative director Shelley Smoler.

Agency creative chief David Kolbusz adds: “It was exciting to bring to life a campaign that reflected the warts-and-all way that people interact with their devices,” such as missing movie scenes while trying to iron creases into those khakis.

CREDITS

CLIENT
Amazon 
Global Chief Creative Officer: Simon Morris
Group Creative Director: Colin Gaul

AGENCY
Droga5 London
Chief Creative Officer: David Kolbusz
Executive Creative Director: Shelley Smoler
Copywriter: Jonathan Thake
Art Director: Ethan Bennett
Agency Producer: Peter Montgomery
Assistant Producer: Manon Rees
Joint Managing Director: Heather Cuss
Account Director: Anna Coulter
Account Manager: Danni Blakeslee
Strategy Director: Damien Le Castrec

PRODUCTION COMPANY
Biscuit Filmworks
Director: Andreas Nilsson
Managing Director / Executive Producer: Rupert Reynolds-Maclean
Producer: Lee Groombridge 
Production Manager: Luke Thornton
DOP: Lasse Frank
Production Designer: David Lee
Costume Designer: Selila Wong
Production Service Company: (Prague unit): Unit+Sofa 

EDIT
Cut & Run
Editor: Ben Campbell 
Assistant Editor: Chris Hutchings
Producer: Ruth Minkley

POST PRODUCTION
The Mill
Executive Producer: Misha Stanford- Harris
Producers: James Beck, Nicola Simmons
CD / Shoot Supervisor: Jonathan Westley
2D Lead Artist: Ben Turner
2D Artists: Peter Hodsman, Declan Andrews
3D Lead Artist: Dan Yargici
3D Artist: Finlay Crowther, Jiyoung Lee, Paul Donnellan, Biswajit Tarafder, Bethan Williams, Murali Krishna Reddy, Roman Vrbovsky
Colour: Seamus O’Kane

SOUND
String and Tins
Supervising sound editor: Lawrence Kendrick
Sound effects editor: Jim Stewart
Audio Post Producer: Eimear Ní Ghuaire

MUSIC (Opera edit only)
Music Supervision: String and Tins
Music Arrangement: Simon Whiteside, Lawrence Kendrick, Jim Stewart