Apoliva
Apoliva Biography
In April 2009, commercial TV stations in Sweden started to air a commercial for Apoliva (a collection of Face and Body care products sold by the Swedish pharmacy company "Apoteket"). The advertising agency Forsman & Bodenfors had focused on the products' suitability for the nordic climate. The clip was directed by Johan Renck (alias Stakka Bo), and featured a female model (Adina Fohlin) in front of rainclouds and thunderbolts, seemingly without much make-up – quite an uncoventional way to sell beauty products. The model was miming to an old Swedish folk song – "Gammalståschans hjärtesuck", with new lyrics written by a commercial Music agency called Music Super Circus. The song was performed by Dead Mono (a commercial music studio) featuring the singer Sarah Assbring a.k.a. El Perro Del Mar.
Many viewers were terrified by the model's appearance, and someone started a group on Facebook called "We who are afraid of the girl in the Apoliva commercial". The number of members increased dramatically, to more than 90000 people. The clip got more hits on Youtube than any other Swedish commercial ever. Other viewers reacted by creating a countless number of new groups, e.g. "We who love the Apoliva commercial", "We who hate the Apoliva commercial", "I'm not afraid of the Apoliva girl", "I'm afraid of people who are afraid of the Apoliva commercial". On Youtube, many users uploaded home made clips with their own versions of the commercial. Media started to report about the clip's huge impact on the viewers, that hadn't been expected at all. Apoteket announced that they would not replace the clip, but let Adina feature their forthcoming commercials as planned.
In May 2010, the first follow-up started to air. This time Adina was miming to a song titled "Där drömmen blir sann", performed by Victoria Bergsman from the band Taken By Trees. The approach was apparently warmer and happier this time (not stopping some viewers to start Facebook groups such as "We who still are afraid of the girl in the Apoliva commercial"). The song was preciously released on the b-side of Taken By Tree's single "Watch the Waves", but with English lyrics. As the commercial was shown, the Swedish version of the song was released as well, as a digital download file on iTunes.
Apoliva Commercial from 2009
Apoliva Commercial from 2010
Home made video from Youtube 2009
Home made video from Youtube 2009
Web-tv clip broadcasted by Aftonbladet.se, August 4th 2009
Apoliva Discography
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Music available on itunes(se)
DEAD MONO FEAT. SARA ASSBRING
2009 Music Super Circus
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DD TAKEN BY TREES
DÄR DRÖMMEN BLIR SANN
2010-05-03 Rough Trade iTunes Digital Download
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