Imag­ine that you are a large Scot­tish Bank. You want to film a new advert. For no doubt good rea­sons you already have a short list of ingre­di­ents:

  • The agree­able voice of Ken Stott; and
  • A flock of sheep.

But no loca­tion. Yet. Hmm­mm. Sheep. Where should you send your advert-wal­lahs?

New Zealand of course! But you also need an urban set­ting, and lots of pro­duc­tion tal­ent. Oh, and if there’s the occa­sion­al Stage­coach liv­er­ied bus then all for the cheap­er (less sfx, you realise.)

at the stationAnd so your sheep and your advert-wal­lahs turn up in… Welling­ton!

They have a fine old time, too. In the air­port, at the train sta­tion, and on a (dig­i­tal­ly manip­u­lat­ed) motor­way offramp, the sus­pi­cious­ly tidy sheep act the part of inert bank cus­tomers fol­low­ing each oth­er around the place. But one brave ewe mod­els the desired behav­iour for all the oth­er sheep to, er, fol­low: to break­away and join the Roy­al Bank of Sheep!

Here at the Welling­ton­ista we won’t point out the irony inher­ent in using sheep to pro­mote slight­ly more indi­vid­u­al­is­tic behav­iour. Nope. Instead, we’d sug­gest a nice game of spot the fleet­ing Welling­ton loca­tions, while hav­ing your day’s con­cerns soothed away in the Scotch Whisky balm that is Ken Stot­t’s voice.

Hat tip, and where to go to see this spot: the Best Ads On TV Blog.