A high-tech house proves to be far from a "smart home" when two burglars arrive in "Welcome," the latest amusing spot from Tribal DDB in Amsterdam for insurance company Centraal Beheer. The long-running comic campaign is tagged "Just call Apeldoorn," the Dutch city where the client is located.
This minute-long ad is more subtle than previous installments like "Speedboat" and "Self-Driving Car," which relied heavily on slapstick and noisy effects to deliver the message. Still, one key theme—technophobia—is carried over from past work, and once again viewers are promised a nasty future shock if we don't take proper precautions (like buying insurance from Centraal Beheer).
The humor is pleasantly subdued, and the perfectly paced build-up puts us slightly off balance until the satisfying payoff (not payout, however, unless you have Centraal Beheer).
You've gotta love those final scenes, with a cocksure, sweaty Silicon Valley-type hyping his home-control gizmo in a packed auditorium. Good luck with that IPO, Einstein!
