Impulse advert - "Icarus had a sister"

Impulse advert - "Icarus had a sister"

Some time around 1999/2000, there were a couple of adverts in the UK for Impulse featuring Icarus's sister. For a start, this is a brilliant and hilarious idea. The scene in the creatives' office probably went something like:

"Ok, we're selling a deodorant here. What we need to do is focus on some kind of widely-known sweaty person."
Eyebrows are raised but the creatives get their minds to work. Soon enough...
"What about Sisyphus? Spending eternity pushing those boulders around, that's gotta build up a sweat."
"True, but it's not very appealing - pushing boulders around isn't something anyone particularly wants to do, it's just not cool. But I like the mythological edge there. Who else in myth sweats a lot?"
"God I love my job..."
"What?"
"Sorry, sorry... ok, who in myth sweats a lot. Someone very hot, someone doing exercise, and someone cool. Wait a minute... Icarus!"
"That's good - flying is cool. But Icarus blew it - that's not cool. Not to mention the fact that he's a guy."
"True. It was so close too. Wait a minute... oh my GOD I've got it! What if Icarus had a sister?"
"... who used Impulse deodorant, and so could get closer to the sun, and was attractive in a girl-next-door kind of way... yes, it's perfect in every way... you're a genius!"
"To the admobile!!"
As the batman theme plays, they slide down the adpole to the adcave to begin filming, and an advertising legend is born.

It can't have been too disimilar to that, anyway. In any case, despite the genius of the concept and the superb execution, this advert seems forgotten by the internet. In fact the only mentions of it I can find are some random person talking about how they haven't been able to find it, and someone else asking who the model was (they also claim the advert was for Natrel Plus, but I feel pretty sure it was Impulse). This is where I come in! I don't have a copy of the advert, but back in the year 2000, a friend of mine was due to turn 21 and was very much a fan of Icarus's sister (who's true identity may well never be known). Having the advert on VHS, and access to screen-capturing technology (thanks dad!), it was a simple matter to take a still from the ad and make it into a birthday card.

In the intervening years, the data has skipped and jumped from one PC to another, and it is only now I finally realise what a precious thing I have in my possession that I find I no longer have everything I originally captured. Sorry about that.

Here's what I do have though:

1) A tiny version of the screenshot I used for the card:

I believe from this that it was actually the second version of the ad I used - this seemed to take the original shots and with a little wizardry relocated the scene to the top of a waterfall. Probably advertising some kind of waterfally new smell or something.

2) A full-size but cropped screenshot I took purely for my own benefit:

(I seem to recall that for whatever reason the image seemed to show a very slight anomalous dimple on her chin, which I removed with photoshop in my proto-idealist way. There are further photoshops used here, because this was me recovering what I could of the image from the one shown below. For these adulterations I can only apologise.)

3) The wallpaper I made using the image, which tantalisingly shows how cropped the above image is, as well as showing pretty clearly where my interests lay at the time:

These days, I've learned my lesson - nothing is deleted, everything is backed up. If I ever somehow recover more of these screencaptures, they will appear here!

Meanwhile, if anyone out there has any information to add, or screenshots, or even (I dare not hope) a copy of the original ad, drop me a line at ranma-tim@care2.com. Even if you only have it on VHS, we can come to some arrangement and get it online - I have the technology!!

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