Spike Jonze‘s “Pardon Our Dust” ad (’05) is great and mythical because it’s about something much bigger and deeper than promoting the Gap brand. It’s about rage…rage against monolithic corporate design, against corporate uniformity and control, against wealthy have-it-alls…rage in favor of freedom, anarchy and all-around madness.
It might be the most liberating TV ad I’ve ever seen in my life. And every three or four years I intend to celebrate the fact that it was (a) made and (b) shown a few times (but not often).
Last posted on 4.30.20: HE hereby apologizes to Spike Jonze for having posted the badly-scored version of his landmark 2005 Gap commercial, “Pardon Our Dust,” instead of the correct one.
The correct version [directly below but shitty looking] uses Edvard Grieg‘s “In The Hall of The Mountain King,” which lends an arch, mock-bombastic air to the raucous destruction of the Gap store. The incorrectly scored version, posted yesterday, uses a sickening Up With People recording of “Don’t Stand Still.”
Between the two videos is a 2005 paragraph (written, I think, by an Ad Age reviewer) about the differences.
