Barnes, Catmur & Friends has just released a new Benjamin Button-esque billboard campaign for Okuma (it’s Kiwi for fishing, don’t you know). And it involves some pretty classic, quintessentially swarthy young/old seadogs. Ah, don’t they grow up and get tattoos and have facial hair and start smoking pipes and reeling in those big ones so fast these days.
Barnes, Catmur & Friends creative boffin Carlos Savage had this to say about the campaign: “Conventionally, most fishing gear communications are full of odd words like modulus graphite componentry and helical wind technology, which makes sense to the three percent of fishing fanatics. But it doesn’t need to be complicated.
“From anywhere in the country, you can be at a fishing spot in an hour or less. How many countries can say that? We wanted to do a campaign that reminded people of this. We wanted to do something that would get people talking, and hopefully get more kiwis out making the most of their great backyard.”
After months of fruitlessly searching for infants capable of growing a full beard, Savage says they decided to shoot the babies and beards separately.
“Mat Baker was our first choice for the job, and he’s done a fantastic job. Anyone who’s ever worked with children or animals know that that they’re notoriously hard to photograph. Each baby had a 15 minute window where they weren’t pooing, crying, eating or sleeping. Mat was nothing short of a baby whisperer. Shooting the guys with beards was slightly easier.”