Meet the M&C poet who won Toni Collette for CommBank

By By David Blight | 28 May 2012
 
Toni Collette.

The team was going to go with another poem for 'CommBank Can', but M&C Saatchi creative director Andy Flemming went home and bashed out something better in just one sitting, and Toni Collette was hooked.

It has been officially confirmed Commonwealth Bank was behind the mystery 'What is Can't' teaser campaign. The bank rolled out a TV campaign yesterday with a strong underlying message of positivity.

AdNews heard the team at M&C Saatchi was originally going to run with another positive poem from the 1920s, but Flemming said it just “wasn't quite right”. "Paul Dunne and Ant Larcombe unearthed a wonderful poem from the 1920s that was great, but it wasn’t quite right – and I think we all felt we could make it tighter and contemporary – yet still retain a timeless feel."

So the poet went home and bashed something out in a single sitting. Within the halls of M&C Saatchi, it will surely become agency folklore that it was this very poem that won over actor Toni Collette, although Flemming wouldn't confirm this.

“I wanted to write a piece that reflected that with all that’s going on right now, Australia is an incredibly positive place to be in, and to put across the fact that people can achieve things because they are in the perfect place to do it.”
 
“The words came out a lot quicker than I expected, it was very cathartic.”
 
“I think Toni really liked the piece, which was very flattering for me. She is the perfect embodiment of the 'Can' positioning.”

Ode to Can

There’s a four lettered word
As offensive as any
It holds back the few
Puts a stop to the many.

You can’t climb that mountain
You can’t cross the sea
You can’t become anything you want to be.

He can’t hit a century
They can’t find a cure.
She can’t think about leaving or searching for more.

Because Can’t is a word with a habit of stopping
The ebb and the flow of ideas
It keeps dropping
itself where we know in our hearts it’s not needed
And saying “don’t go” when we could have succeeded.

But those four little letters
That end with a T
They can change in an instant
When shortened to three.

We can take off the T
We can do it today
We can move forward not back
We can find our own way.

We can build we can run
We can follow the sun
We can push we can pull
We can say I’m someone
Who refuses to believe
That life can’t be better
With the removal of one
Insignificant letter.

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