Given how much advertising loves office humor, it's a bit surprising that characters from Office Space haven't been revived more often for commercials. Bill Lumbergh, in particular—the 1999 film's most broadly drawn corporate caricature—is great for a laugh. Yet the character, played by Gary Cole, has shown up only once in an ad—for State Farm, a few years ago—and didn't even deliver much of his signature drawling babble.
Now, Atlassian corrects that with this campaign for HipChat—software that facilitates internal communication at the workplace, including live chat.In the 90-second spot below, Lumbergh has brought in his employees on Labor Day to discuss how they can work better. Instead of using HipChat, he wants more meetings and more emails—and for the latter, "more bulk on your threads." Mmm-kay?
The onscreen tagline at the end is: "Don't work in the past."
The campaign, by San Francisco creative agency Brass Ideas, will also include :15s and :30s, banner ads and out-of-home, though not TPS reports.