Be careful: If you buy a designer dress and a leather biker jacket at British discount chain T.K. Maxx, you'll soon find yourself regularly practicing ballet on a motorcycle—just to match your beloved outfit.
It's the absurd, entertaining conceit at the heart of a new ad for the retailer (known as T.J. Maxx in the U.S.) created by Wieden + Kennedy London. A young woman daintily balances on the tail of her heavy black bike while popping a wheelie and spinning circles in slow motion. All the while, an elderly woman named Doris plays an art deco organ that sounds an awful lot like a piano—a service that, according to the protagonist, is quite expensive.
The campaign's tagline, aptly, is "ridiculous possibilities."
That message, especially when combined with the headline "Big labels, small prices," effectively amounts to a new twist on the old marketing saw—"You'll never believe the deals you'll find." But it still works well enough as a broad frame for specific insanities.
A second ad channels a cross between Bravo and 2001: A Space Odyssey, focusing on a crew of astronauts enjoying a spa day in the cosmos, while paying a cheeky sort of homage to the retro sci-fi aesthetic and ponderously graceful camera work of the classic Stanley Kubrick film. (The ship's computer does not, apparently, go on a maniacal killing spree, even if perhaps it would, in this case, be even more justified.)
A handful of print executions extend the idea further.
In one, a man who's been shopping at the store suggests you'll find a wool sweater so soft it will make you gleefully want to fill your entire office with sheep.
In another, you'll want to channel your inner glam decorator and hang a dozen lamps from your ceiling. They go especially well with your perpetually judgy Persian cat.
In a third, you might also, for some inexplicable reason, want to scale a sandstone building using a string of silk scarves, because they're just that affordable—and apparently rated for climbing.
In other words, have a blast shopping, but don't try the stunts at home.
