Wirz-AD Katrin von Niederhäusern and illustrator Janine Wiget land viral hit

"I love The Simpsons and I live in New Orleans and this is the best thing I've ever seen in my life," comments a YouTube user under the video. Or: "Probably one of the greatest things I've ever watched. I have tears in my eyes, starting to roll down my face." The comments are unanimous.

Concept: simple. Idea and implementation: simply great. Katrin von Niederhäusern, Art Director at Wirz and Janine Wiget, independent illustrator, spent their vacation recreating a sequence from the series "The Simpsons" on the original locations in New Orelans, scene by scene.

New Orleans is no coincidence. "We were in vocational school together and since then we always travel to New Orleans together," they explain to Werbewoche.ch.

Even though it's not the first time Katrin von Niederhäusern has caused a stir far beyond the advertising industry - last year, for example, she made a splash with rap star Action Bronson via slip business card applied as illustrator and landed with the action among other things at a glance - the size of the range should be open upwards this time.

Find out more about Katrin von Niederhäusern in the joint interview with industry colleagues Moritz Bauer (Publicis), Frederik Dreier (JvM/Limmat) and Isabelle Benz (TBWA\Zurich) in Werbewoche 5/2019.

Those unfamiliar with New Orleans might be surprised at how faithfully the "Simpsons" producers depicted the numerous restaurants. But so were Von Niederhäusern and Wiget: "After watching the episode, we immediately had to Google whether the 54 restaurants really existed.

There were further difficulties with the implementation: "One restaurant closed down in the meantime, another changed its logo, another no longer had the menu on the menu, two were undergoing renovations, one was on summer break, and for many of them the angles from the cartoon were almost impossible to simulate," says Von Niederhäusern. Wiget adds, "Luckily, in the creative industry, we're trained to deal with such complications on a daily basis... so we just had to get a little inventive and turn a trash can into a table, for example, or fake a zuccini bisque soup with yogurt and matcha powder - but psssst!"

(all photos: zVg)

Looking at the elaborately and lovingly produced result, it is hardly surprising that the film is gaining momentum on YouTube: After four days, the clip has already generated 97,000 views, with a strong upward trend - presumably a future hit in the millions.

Another video on Katrin von Niederhäusern's YouTube channel has far fewer views, but still arouses curiosity: the two protagonists sing a plea to "Fernando" on the ukulele that Katrin should be allowed to stay longer in the USA. The recipient is Fernando Perez, Executive Creative Director at Wirz and Katrin von Niederhäusern's boss.

"I should have deleted that from my channel again," laughs Von Niederhäusern. Did it at least do any good? It does. "Because we didn't just want to film in New Orleans - it was really exhausting filming ten restis a day - but also wanted to catch our breath a little and enjoy live music, we had to ask my boss if I could stay in the U.S. a little longer." Instead of just sending him an email, he said, they wrote him a personal song. "We thought he would be soft and will give us the time. Unfortunately, it didn't work out! Although the song is incredibly good, right? I think Fernando just doesn't have good taste in music..."

An important question arises: Did the two protagonists actually eat the food shown? "Before the shoot, we did extra training with Homer Simpson's stomach. So our stomachs were prepared. We gave what we didn't have room for to the homeless," answer Von Niederhäusern and Wiget.

The question remains whether you can shoot such an elaborate production on the side during the vacations, or whether you have to invest all your vacation days for it. "Well, we didn't really have much vacation. But that's how I love it anyway. What else would we do? We find shopping and sightseeing rather boring," says Katrin von Niederhäusern.