Commercials

A 30-second ode to a bubble bath. Banned by Finnish television for the "merry exposure of a girl sharing her bath with a man". Won Best Commercial at Zagreb 1972, beating Preston Blair and Geoff Dunbar. The award led directly to the move to London.

Marjut had a Kulttuurirahasto grant to study animation abroad, but her career as an art director in Helsinki had taken off so fast she could never get away. The summer of 1970 finally got her to the Mamaia film festival in Romania, where she sat through morning-to-late-night animation screenings and met the British animation producer Dick Arnall.

I got very inspired, sat in the festival from morning screenings till late shows, and got a high-dose injection of animation straight to my brain. I could see what makes animation special, and also what were the worn-out and conventional approaches. I also met Dick, the love of my life, in the festival, and the Vivante commercial was a result of these exciting experiences.

Marjut Rimminen, on Mamaia 1970

A few months later, in the Kauppatori cafe in Helsinki, Marjut bumped into Lemmikki Nenonen, a commercials director who had been asked to make a TV spot for Berner's Vivante bath cosmetics but couldn't find an idea.

I suggested animation, and having a man and a woman sharing a bath together (something that Dick and I indulged in). I promised to draw some sketches.

Marjut Rimminen

Berner liked the sketches and approved three months of production time. The first line test was terrible: the bath tub had been redrawn on every cel, and the picture juddered as if floating in a heavy storm. That is how Marjut learned to put things on layers.

When the commercial was finished, Mainos TV banned it for being too risque. The Lintas / Womena agency had faith in the project and entered it into Klaffikilpailu, Finland's annual best-commercials competition, where Vivante won an award. The following spring she sent it to Zagreb, where it took the Grand Prix for best commercial, beating spots by Preston Blair and Geoff Dunbar. After that Mainos TV changed its mind and put it on air.

Even a sponsor less flexible than the alphabet can still produce delicate pleasures, as the prizewinner for the best commercial proved. Marjut Rimminen's Vivante, a 30-second ode to a bubble bath, has been banned by Finnish television for its merry exposure of a girl sharing her bath with a man. Instead it now delights cinema audiences, and wins festival prizes.

Derek Hill, The Times, on Zagreb 1972

The year after Zagreb, at Annecy 1973, Lee Mishkin invited Marjut to come and work at Halas & Batchelor in London. A few months later, at Cannes, Dereck Younghusband, also from Halas & Batchelor, stood in the festival cafe waving a telegram from his boss and called out: "Are there any Finns around, and does anybody know Marjut Rimminen? She is invited to work in London." Marjut moved to London in autumn 1974 and has been there ever since.

• 🥇 Best Animated Commercial, 1972 Zagreb World Animation Festival
• 🥈 Hopeaklaffi, 1972, Finland's silver award for advertising film