Image Credit : Dissolve Inc.
Project Overview
A promotional video for a stock footage company that pokes fun at the cliches of brand videos, yet still manages to be beautiful.
Organisation
Team
Jon Parker: Brand Director (concept and copywriting)
Drew Ng-How-Tseung: Designer (art direction and editing)
Sheldon Popiel: Creative Director
Lori Burwash: Social Media Manager
Kendra Eash: Writer
Project Brief
As a new entrant to the stock footage market, established in mid-2013, Dissolve sought to build awareness around its product, stock footage, by showing its product in use. Secondary goals were to increase signups and site traffic.
Communication objective and target: To send a message to creatives working in advertising and video production that Dissolve has quality stock footage, and that we understand your world and your needs.
Insight and genesis: We found the original script on McSweeney’s, a humor site. Though the script parodied the most egregious clichés in “shoot the brief” brand videos, we wanted to see it made. And we thought our audience would enjoy seeing it, too. We knew that despite being a formulaic, paint-by-numbers execution that we could make it look good, and if it was funny enough, people would share it and see our footage in action.
Project Innovation/Need
What's most novel, to quote one media mention, is our sense of self-awareness about how stock footage is often used: “It's great that a stock video house would so gleefully celebrate the soul-sucking manipulations for which its offerings are generally used."
While most stock image and footage companies try to distance themselves from the clichés of the industry, we addressed them head-on. In our sophisticated, image-driven age we understand that sometimes "bad" can be good. Despite being full of conceptual cliches, our footage actually looks great in the video, and gets people to watch dozens of our clips, showing how it can be used to create a compelling story. Even if that story is about predictable, generic advertising tropes.
Design Challenge
The biggest challenge was balancing humor (script) with beauty (clips). The sophisticated soundtrack, professional-sounding voiceover, and well-timed edits made the piece flow into a very appealing whole.
Effectiveness
The video was posted on March 21. On March 25th it exploded: articles on Fast Company, Ad Age, Adweek, Mashable, Gizmodo, Mediaite and TIME; Vimeo staff pick and Boing Boing post. Over 1.2MM views on YouTube and 500k on Vimeo to date.
During the first week visits increased by 9x, site signups and sales revenue both increased 6x. It was widely shared and commented upon, see the case study film for sample quotes. Research requests poured in from large ad agencies who were previously not customers. In short, the video put Dissolve on their radar of stock suppliers.
It continues to drive thousands of site visitors every week.
Film - Short/Viral
This award celebrates creative and innovative visual and audio short film and/or viral communications that place an emphasis on design values. Consideration given to the technical, conceptual and aesthetic elements, viewer engagement and message delivery.
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