Premiering on the big screen at the opening night of the 33rd Flickerfest 2024 Short Film Festival in Bondi, Specsavers’ newest ‘Should’ve Gone to Specsavers’ moment takes the perceived absurdity of a suburban house auction to the big screen.
Set at a real estate auction in Australian suburbia, the story features a passionate auctioneer auctioning off a house to a crowd of prospective buyers. Building up to a winning bid, the auctioneer points to the back of the crowd and exclaims “1.4 million to the man up the back!”. As he congratulates the winning bidder, the crowd turns to look at the new house owner and instead see a van parked on the street featuring a cartoon plumber waving. As a tradesman closes the door of the van and drives away, the auctioneer continues to wave him inside the property as the iconic tagline appears on the screen.
The new 30-second ad was created as part of Specsavers’ partnership with Flickerfest short film festival, which involved a national competition to uncover and support an up-and-coming filmmaker to create their very own ‘Should’ve gone to Specsavers’ ad. Jesse Vogelaar, a Melbourne-based creative and award-winning comedy short filmmaker was chosen as the winner from 135 applicants.
“For over 15 years, we’ve seen audiences continue to love our ‘Should’ve Gone to Specsavers’ ads. We were so excited to give Jesse the platform to put his own creative spin on a beloved campaign,” said Shaun Briggs, Director of Marketing Planning ANZ. ”We are delighted with the final product and excited to see the ad come to life on the big screen at Flickerfest. The Should’ve messaging continues to inspire audiences to be as excited about eye health as we are, and Jesse’s concept showcases this in a fresh new way.”
“The famous ‘Should’ve gone to Specsavers’ line was a great framework for coming up with my own concept and the folks at Specsavers were really supportive in bringing it to life,” said director, Jesse Vogelaar.
“As someone who’s shortsighted, there’s been a few times that I’ve run into a case of mistaken identity – so it was a lot of fun to write this idea and set it within the theatre of an auction. I hope audiences get a laugh out of it like the other “Should’ve” ads that have come before it.”
Jesse was supported by the Specsavers marketing team and creative agency Sunday Gravy to shoot the ad in Melbourne, Australia.
The newest instalment to the Should’ve Gone to Specsavers ad series will play from the 19th to the 28th January at the Flickerfest festival before appearing in 45 other venues around the country as part of the Flickerfest national tour from Feb-Oct 2024. It will also be rolled out nationally across BVOD, SVOD, YouTube and Cinema from January 1
