WHAT'S NEXT

about his Atlantis campaign, which sells the notion that a stay at the resort will transform vacationers. In one ad, a family of dolphins swims toward the resort. As they reach the shore, they morph into a vacationing family who walk onto the beach. "The effects do serve the strategy of communicating a fun, tropical, family, destination, but other than that -big deal," says Bob Garfield, advertising critic at Advertising Age. "If Ratner is supposed to

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By Moon Ihtwan

Retner in 1992, directing his first commercial snoot

bring HoUywOOd „lagic to the land of
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for Phat Farm, the apparel company

advertismg, sofar not SO gOod." Ratner,

surprised to hear that there are critics in the ad world, too, says: "As long as it gets people to book hotel rooms, I'm happy." Ratner can help deUver those bookings, a key difference between himself and traditional agencies. This year the director plans to include the Atlantis resort as the setting for an episode of a show he just sold to the CW Television Network, called Losi Weekend. Then there is the attention Brett Ratner attracts for simply being Brett Ratner. On Jan. 4, Entertainment Tonight aired a segment devoted to the director's work for Atlantis. In it, Ratner trumpeted the resort's various charms. "It's not just a hotel," be said. "It's a destination." Later, an ET host invited viewers to visit ETOnline to watch an "exclusive Director's Cut" {a 2-minute version) of the ad. Kerzner also paid for ads to run on TV and the Web, but Ratner was the draw. "We wouldn't normally focus on a commercial campaign," says Marc Weinhouse, an executive at CBS Television Distribution, which owns ET. "But it made a lot ofsense because of Brett." iBwi