It’s not often that a ’90s dance anthem sets the stage for a pitch. For most who lived through it, that era is best left in the dark recesses of history.

For Ringan Ledwidge, however, plumbing his mental catalogue of early electronica proved a boon when preparing to pitch on “Brains”, a commercial for energy drink brand Drench, which features the marionette character Brains from Thunderbirds performing a fierce dance routine. Wanting to enter the meeting with London-based agency CHI&Partners with a clear vision of music for the spot, he gravitated to “Rhythm is a Dancer”, the 1992 hit single by German dance group Snap!, feeling it an underexploited ironic gem.

“I listened to pretty much every cheesy, shit song I could think of,” he recalls. “I went in and said: ‘Before we even start talking about it, I think we should use [‘Rhythm Is a Dancer’] for the music’ and I played it. For about 30 seconds I couldn’t work out whether they thought I was fucking stupid or taking the piss.”

Defining the 37-year-old’s commercial output over the past 12 months isn’t easy. With more than a decade of experience directing ads, the Rattling Stick co-founder continues to defy categorization and “Brains” is a perfect case in point: though utterly silly, it presented a new and exciting technical challenge and doesn’t remotely resemble his other work from 2008. Requiring precise boarding, 10 puppeteers, a motion-control rig and a lot of VFX, the ad is a technical departure for a director obsessed with in-camera authenticity.

“I thought it’d be nice to do something stupid and irreverent,” he says, adding that its production conundrums proved enticing. “I really enjoyed the process of doing something completely the opposite of what I naturally go towards and it proved me wrong in terms of CG, so I stood corrected.”

Ledwidge followed “Brains” with a spot that couldn’t be more different: a heartfelt backpacker romance for Orange called “Rewind City” for which he oversaw a chaotic four-day shoot in a remote location in Goa, India. He then returned to London to begin researching an even more ambitious undertaking: a two-minute re-telling of turbulent moments in recent British history – from the First World War to the labor union protests of the 1980s – to mark bread brand Hovis’ 120th year.

A certifiable event spot, “Go on Lad” picked up the Thinkbox Award for Best Television Commercial at the British Television Advertising Awards and earned accolades from Ridley Scott, director of the 1973 Hovis spot “Bike Ride”, now widely considered to be one of the UK’s most beloved commercials.

If Hovis decides to celebrate its 121st year, Ledwidge would likely need to add the global economic meltdown to the list of obstacles faced by those intrepid Brits. After four months of reading scripts, he’s not optimistic about 2009’s creative prospects, but, as with 2008, he’s confident the odd, unexpected gem will arrive on his desk – perhaps even something suitably stupid and irreverent to warrant a C&C Music Factory revival.

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