For more than twenty years Instant Kiwi scratchie cards have been injecting a little bit of excitement into Kiwis' lives. And the new 'It pays to push your luck' campaign is no different. Brought to life by a spontaneous and cheeky central character, we watch as he is unleashed on the unsuspecting public and proceeds to push his luck in a number of audacious scenarios in the hope that it could all fall his way. This scenario entitled 'Garage Sale', saw Jesse trying to flog superhero undies, mismatched skates and even air guitars. But in this spot we see him selling pre-paid alibis.

In terms of casting for Instant kiwi ‘Alibi’ every choice was based on serving the central message which was, Pushing your luck is not only worth it, but it’s enjoyable and fun. So we wanted to create a comedy double act in which the funny man really pushed his luck in all different contexts. This commercial is part of a campaign and while we changed the person playing the straight man role, the dynamic between the two roles always remained the same.

Jesse Griffin felt like a great fit for the funny man role. I always felt that the combination of naïveté and enthusiasm gave him license to get away with almost anything. Years of comedy experience has given Jesse a very quick mind and he is able to effortlessly slide in funny material into the improvisational shooting style.

He is so charming it is almost impossible to say no to his outlandish requests. The key to this is the fact that Jesse could make incredible requests seem very reasonable.

When it comes to Raj, he is playing the straight role. To find Raj, we put out a very wide wide net and auditioned a huge number of people. A lot of what Raj says in the commercial was never scripted, it was coming directly from his own life. When he says ‘It’s a legal terminology, I have studied law’ or ‘You naughty man, I’m a married person’ it’s completely real. It’s this reality that to me, makes the humour really work and feel three dimensional. He isn’t saying funny lines, he is simply reacting to a situation that is funny. In the end, it was the playfulness between the two characters that really brought the performances of this commercial together. It’s not about two separate performances, it’s two people with the right chemistry firing off each other