It's been seven years since Eric Saarinen shot Jeep's "Snow Covered" and the piece is still on the air.

The spot (from Detroit's Bozell, now Pentamark) shows something burrowing through deep snow in a mountain-ringed valley, like a mole in a cartoon. The something approaches the camera and then stops, just as the viewer is able to distinguish a set of lights and the top of a stop sign poking out of the snow. The left blinker flashes on and the vehicle pulls a sharp left as the Jeep tagline appears.

Saarinen notes that the spot is a very conventional combination of s-turns, scenic shots, a blow-by and an end product shot. Except you can't see the vehicle.

The original production budget ($800,000) has more than paid off for Jeep. "Cars generally do one campaign a year." And rarely do they get away with repeat showings of product spots.

And for Saarinen? The Cannes Grand-Prix winning spot was a keystone for his shop, Plum Productions, Santa Monica, and marked the first ever Grand-Prix awarded to a car ad. "It changed the kinds of people I was talking to."

Webfiles:
Plum Productions> http://www.plumprod.com