"If a dollar was a chicken, would the chicken be evil?"

April 25, 2004 3:04 PM

I have a friend from the UK who talks about a commercial with Samuel L. Jackson talking about the evils of money, and then wondering, "If a dollar was a chicken, would the chicken be evil?" The friend has no clue what the commercial was about or for, hasn't seen it since, and googling turns up nothing conclusive (perhaps we're searching the wrong things.) Got any ideas?
posted by precocious to media & arts (9 comments total)

A guy here says it was a Barclay's ad. There is an article on the ad here, but the site is down so I cannot read it. The excerpt in Vivisimo's results page is "... L. Jackson asking us, “If a dollar was a chicken, would a chicken be evil?” These ads are some of the creme de la creme of their ilk. The Brits regularly seem to garner acclaim for these McNuggets of ..." I wasn't able to find an archived copy of the page, but someone else might.

For what it's worth, I searched using the phrase in quotes and got decent results.
posted by stet at 3:21 PM on April 25, 2004

It was indeed Barclays Bank. He did a series of them.
posted by twine42 at 3:30 PM on April 25, 2004

Hoo, I feel a bit silly.

Something Google doesn't seem to turn up are the ads themselves. I don't suppose any of the UKers here have any of them recorded? I'd be willing to host 'em. They sound gold.

Or even just a full transcript.
posted by precocious at 4:55 PM on April 25, 2004

visit4info seems to have videos of them, but you have to pay to see them.
posted by zsazsa at 5:29 PM on April 25, 2004

Precocious - they're really not that great. Quite cheesy in fact, and very soon annoying.
posted by bifter at 2:35 AM on April 26, 2004

Yeah, agree with bifter on the high irritation factor. Also, the brand/celebrity seem mismatched: people remember the ad for Sam L Jr, not for the company that commissioned them. Which kinda defeats the point.
posted by Skaramoosh at 3:40 AM on April 26, 2004

Never liked the ads myself, as I couldn't see what the hell they had to do with the average consumer's experience of using a High Street bank.

Since SLJ never actually mentions "Barclays" anywhere in any of the ads, I always assumed they were recycled from some American ad.
posted by salmacis at 3:45 AM on April 26, 2004

It was for Barclays bank; press office telephone [phone]. Press office contacts here - tell them that you're a US journo.

The ad itself was made by hip London ad agency, Bartle Bogle Hegarty. If you can get them to put the coke away for five minutes, they might be able to point you in the right direction. Contact details on website, can't deep link; flash.
posted by dmt at 3:41 PM on April 26, 2004

salmacis, I seem to recall someone telling me that the ads were originally made for Abbey National but then sold to Barclays when AN decided to use a different campaign.
posted by hugsnkisses at 11:14 AM on April 30, 2004