Canon Wants You to 'Shprinck' Everyone You Know in Musical Ad

Take a picture, it’ll last longer. And while you’re at it, stick the damn thing on the wall. 

Canon introduces the word shprinck—short for “shoot + print + stick”—to the lexicon, and reworks Allan Sherman’s 1963 novelty hit “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah,” to help launch its Ivy instant camera printers.

Ads from FCB New York encourage Gen Z to take snaps of friends and family (well, everyone, really), then stick them on lockers, backpacks, jackets and keyboards (hey, practically anywhere). 

By attaching a name to the behavior, Canon seeks to own it. This spot puts it all in focus: 

“Hello Muddah,” a silly send-up of sleep-away camp—with its lilting balletic melody borrowed from Amilcare Ponchielli’s “Dance of the Hours”—has graced past campaigns from marketers such as Downy and McDonald’s. Here, Sherman’s saga of summertime blues—”Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh/Here I am at Camp Granada”—transforms into a mildly risqué brand celebration. In addition to “shprincking” Mom, Dad and Grandma, Canon urges viewers to shprinck your boyfriend, a stranger, two horses and your teacher.

Heck, you can even shprinck yourself.

“The instant camera printer category is saturated with messaging around capturing moments and memories,” says FCB executive creative director Stu Mair. “So, we decided to be a little bit more fun and provocative with ‘Shprinck the World,’ turning the functional benefits of the camera into a mistakenly edgy term. Not only does it help Canon Ivy own the three-part process, but it also gives this next generation a new, exciting way to leave their mark, without being too serious.”

The work winks at its audience, and expects them to wink back. Director Miguel Campaña of Landia employs his kicky style and attention to detail (check the startled look on that bleacher-boyfriend’s face) to really sell the storyline. Campaña scored a few months ago with the “Small World” spot for WordPress, which exuded a similar comic vibe.

Activations with Amazon and Viacom, Gen-Z influencer support and a fall campus tour are all on tap for Canon. “Shprinck” even popped up last week in the Urban Dictionary.

As for the baby boomer-era song selection, “It’s such a sticky track, and hopefully our lyrical spin on it takes it to the next level,” Mair says. “It was definitely a good sign when we kept catching random people on set—grips, gaffers, extras, etc.—singing to themselves, ‘Shprinck your mother, shprinck your father.’ Bizarre, but definitely a good sign.”

Muse spoke to the director, Campaña, more about the work. 

Muse: I loved the WordPress film. This Canon work had sort of the same off-kilter vibe…
Miguel Campaña: I’m really comfortable with humor and storytelling, especially in this kind of complex narrative structure in which you have to surprise the viewer with each new character and situation. Of course, Canon is a musical, which makes things a bit different. There isn’t a lot of room in the edit to improvise, which means you need to match each character reaction and camera movement to the rhythm of the song during the actual shoot. At the same time, I also love making spontaneous decisions on set. It makes the production a much more creative experience.

So, you’re introducing a whole new generation to “Hello Muddah.” Why use that song?
It was definitely one of the things that attracted me to the project. It has a funny and ironic tone that fits really well with the concept behind the campaign and makes the whole “shprinking” reveal unexpected. There were a lot of scenes to cover which were especially challenging, but the entire cast worked very hard, and I think it shows in the final result. For example, we had to make a 94-year-old sing “Shprinck” in perfect sync with the playback, which was not an easy task.

Well, there’s certainly a lot of “Shprinking” going on!
Two days before shooting, we were thinking about the horse scene and felt it was kind of missing something. We were out for dinner, and Stu Mair, the head creative from FCB, came up with the idea of having two horses instead of one, which I thought was brilliant, but we didn’t have a lot of time to rehearse. We trained the horses in just one day and trusted that things would work out as we imagined, which they did.

Do you “shprinck”? If so, what do you “shprinck”?
I “shprinck” less than I would like, but I’m not sure this is the right place to talk about it.

CREDITS

Client – Canon USA 
Rita Dubey – Senior Director, Marketing 
Kevin McCarthy- Senior Manager, Marketing 
Alexis Barbieri- Manager, Marketing 
Karen Miller-Sr. Advisor, Product Planning
Melisa Yoo- Sr. Specialist, Marketing
Gabrielle Marino- Specialist, Marketing
Alexis Marie Martinez – Specialist, Marketing
Brian Lane- Specialist, Marketing

Agency – FCB New York
Ari Halper – Chief Creative Officer, NY
Stu Mair – Executive Creative Director
Kevin Flores – Art Director
Sarah Bass – Copywriter
Adam Isidore – Director of Integrated Production
Kate Fixter – Integrated Producer
Margot Meyerhoff – Senior Digital Producer
Jonathan Fishel – UX Director
Alexander Ridore – Creative Technologist
Todd Sussman – Chief Strategy Officer
Laura Dunn – SVP, Director of Business Development
Enrique Espinetti – Account Director
Jeff Barnes – SVP, Director of Data & Analytics
Amir Sattar – Manager, Strategic Analytics
Sunjoo Ryou – Director of Creative Management
Jesse Morris – Project Manager

Production:
Director: Miguel Campaña
Executive Producer: Leda Nasio
Producer: Laureana Ferrucci
Director of Photography: Christos Voudouris
Production Company: Landia
Music House: Yessian
EP/Managing Director: Marlene Bartos

Composer: Dan Zank
Audio Post: Vinyl Mix
Audio Post Mixer: Weston Fonger
Editorial Company: WAX
Editor: Jason Sager
Assistant Editor: Alex Doyle
GFX: Garret Walter
Flame Artist: Rich Siciliano
Post Producer: Kelly Mackey
Managing Director/EP: Toni Lipari
Color: Damien van der Cruyssen @ The Mill

Initiative:
Jason Martinetti – Director, Comms Design
Tatyana Zagalskaya – Associate Director, Digital Partnerships
Oliva Kleinman – Communications Designer
Timothy Southerland – Manager, Digital Partnerships

Reprise:
Mary Zumba, VP, Group Account Director
Finlay Young, Account Executive
Cameron Klitz, VP, Strategy
Gloria Patterson, Senior Social Strategist
Greg Merwede, Director, Paid Social
Milynn Luong, Manager, Paid Social
Miraal Aga, Specialist, Paid Social