Still from Hermès’ La Fabrique de la Soie film
Video content has become a pillar of marketing, as the medium encourages engagement and provides a captivating visual perspective into a luxury brand’s ethos and inner workings.
The videos produced by luxury brand marketers during the third quarter of 2016 delighted consumers through artistic storylines, abstract concepts, sarcasm and romantic humor. Due to videos’ effectiveness across platforms, brands have also looked to increase the visibility of social influencers within its filmed campaigns to heighten consumer interest.
Here are the top 10 social videos of the third quarter, in alphabetical order:
Still from Audi’s The Comeback
Audi restores hope
German automaker Audi cast the ideal advocate for pilotless driving in its recent promotional film.
The automotive industry is neck-in-neck is developing functional, real-world autonomous driving, whether consumers are ready for the advances in technology or not. In Audi’s “The Comeback,” the automaker shows how autonomous driving can be a revitalizing experience for those tired of their day-to-day reality.
Audi’s video, which quickly went viral, stars a gloomy T-Rex who has lost his drive after the general population are no longer afraid of him due to his short arms and the complications they cause. The dinosaur’s life is changed for the better, giving him a new lease on life, with the discovery of Audi’s autonomous driving technology (see story).
Audi – The Comeback
Christoph Waltz for Dom Pérignon’s P2
Dom Pérignon’s bubbly expressions
LVMH-owned Champagne house Dom Pérignon tapped Christoph Waltz’s theatricality to portray the emotions felt as its bubbles are savored.
“Touched with Plénitude” is the debut campaign for Dom Pérignon P2, a Champagne first released in 2014 that was 16 years in the making. For this campaign, Dom Pérignon chose to let Mr. Waltz’s expressions do the talking, with each subtle movement of his eyes or lips telling the story of the Champagne’s intensity.
Academy Award-winning actor Mr. Waltz stars in a short black-and-white film that depicts the sensation of the bubbles first meeting the palette through his facial expressions (see story).
Dom Pérignon P2 new campaign with Christoph Waltz
Image from Fabergé’s #SayYesInColor
Fabergé takes a knee
Russian jeweler Fabergé is prompting consumers to look beyond diamonds for their engagement rings with a colorful digital campaign.
The brand’s #SayYesInColour film tells color coordinated stories of proposals to showcase the brand’s emerald, ruby and sapphire engagement ring collection. While still an unconventional choice, depicting the women’s enthusiastic responses may help convince consumers to consider a colored stone.
Fabergé’s effort is featured on its Web site homepage. A one-minute version of the film plays automatically when a consumer navigates to the site.
First, a woman wearing red lipstick smiles at the camera as a tear streams down her cheek. Changing scenes, a red haired woman is shown with a surprised and delighted expression on her face, the forest behind her matching her green eyes.
Making an even bolder face of shock, the third protagonist is seen at an aquarium (see story).
Fabergé – #SayYesinColour
Still from Hermès’ La Fabrique de la Soie film
Hermès gets wrapped up
French apparel and accessories maker Hermès is demonstrating how its silk scarves are manufactured with a film set within its Lyon, France workshop.
Hermès’ “La Fabrique de la Soie,” or The Silk Mill in English, celebrates Hermès’ popular silk scarf category ahead of the product’s 80th anniversary next year. Delving into the production details of a popular product segment can spur interest among consumers who may be fans, but are unaware of the care and detail taken before the item lands in-stores.
For La Fabrique de la Soie, Hermès worked with photographer and filmmaker Craig McDean.
The minute-long film follows a model, who serves as a glamourous representation of silk, through the brand’s silk factor and its production process (see story).
Hermès – La Fabrique de la Soie
Video still from Kenzo’s “My Mutant Brain”
Kenzo loses control
French fashion label Kenzo is weaving an energetic tale of spontaneity and creative expression to launch its latest scent.
Inspired by the brand’s eye insignia from its fall/winter 2013 collection, Kenzo World is the first fragrance envisioned by Kenzo co-artistic directors Carol Lim and Humberto Leon. To celebrate the launch, the design duo tapped their friend filmmaker Spike Jonze to capture the free-thinking, spirited layer of the Kenzo woman in a colorful, feverish short.
Mr. Jonze’s “My Mutant Brain” features actress and dancer Margaret Qualley as the protagonist.
The start of the film finds the star seated at a table in a banquet hall listening to a droning speech, struggling to feign interest in the speaker with a plastered smile.
She whispers to one of her companions to excuse herself and gets up from the table. Once out in a hallway, she takes a few relaxed steps in her layered green dress in silence.
Suddenly, as a percussive soundtrack created exclusively for Kenzo by Sam Spiegel featuring Assassin begins to play, Ms. Qualley’s eyes dart around and blink in rhythm. The rest of her face gets in on the fun, as she contorts her mouth to the beats (see story).
Kenzo World, the new fragrance
Christian Louboutin’s Trouble in Heaven fragrance
Christian Louboutin talks love
French footwear brand Christian Louboutin is introducing its women’s fragrances from the comical-yet-romantic perspective of their wearers’ lovesick male counterparts.
Christian Louboutin ventured into the fragrance category after a successful entrance into color cosmetics and now offers female consumers footwear, accessories, lipstick and nail varnish to create a head-to-toe, branded look. When launching its first signature scent, Christian Louboutin debuted a trio instead, with three perfumes that capture the multifaceted desires and personalities of a woman.
Christian Louboutin is promoting its three scents, Bikini Questa Sera, Tornade Blonde and Trouble in Heaven, on its YouTube channel as well as its Web site’s home page.
The three videos created for the scents feature three male protagonists in different scenarios. While the women in question are never seen in the films, they are the subject of discussion, adding a humorous element to the films (see story).
Christian Louboutin introduces: Bikini Questa Sera
Michael Kors Access smartwatch
Michael Kors’ active day
U.S. fashion label Michael Kors showcased the utility and aesthetics of its new smartwatch with help from two active influencers.
The Michael Kors Access smartwatch, available starting Sept. 6, runs on Google’s Android Wear platform, allowing wearers to sync their iPhone or Android device to the timepiece. Demonstrating the functionality of the tech accessory, Michael Kors tapped actress-singer-dancer Zendaya and model Martha Hunt for a playful video.
In the film, the two women are seen interacting with the watch from the moment they wake up in New York. They text back and forth about workouts, track their activity at the gym or dance studio, locate addresses of restaurants and customize the look of their watch several times throughout the day.
Both spokesmodels end up at a glamorous party with Mr. Kors himself at the end of their busy day (see story).
Zendaya and Martha Hunt | Michael Kors Access Smartwatch
Prada La Femme et L’Homme Prada campaign
Prada gets fluid
Italian fashion house Prada has bottled its iconoclastic attitude for a binary fragrance for men and women.
Surrounding its new fragrance launch, La Femme Prada for women and L’Homme Prada for men, Prada has developed a marketing concept that features multiple women and men, but who are shown to have interchangeable identities. The campaign works to show that La Femme Prada and L’Homme Prada characterize the Italian fashion house’s consumers into a bundle of total brand identity.
Prada’s video for the La Femme et L’Homme Prada line was shot by photographer Steven Meisel and explores “the fluidity of identity.” By never showing the four actors featured in the film together, Prada is able to better express its interchangeable identity concept (see story).
La Femme et L’Homme Prada
Image courtesy of Tiffany
Tiffany works with Grace
Jeweler Tiffany & Co. is taking consumers behind-the-scenes of its first celebrity-led campaign through a documentary film.
Tiffany tapped filmmaker R.J. Cutler, the director behind “The September Issue,” to capture the process as Vogue creative director-at-large Grace Coddington took on her first branded campaign. Clocking in at 10 minutes, the documentary is much longer than typical making of social videos, allowing Tiffany to tell a more complete story of how its Legendary Style advertising effort came to be.
Tiffany’s campaign marks the first creative endeavor Ms. Coddington has taken after leaving her full-time role at Vogue. Her career in magazines spanned about 50 years, over the course of which she created a legacy of imagery.
In “Some Style is Legendary,” Ms. Coddington is first seen discussing her thoughts on the brand and its hometown of New York as she sketches one of Tiffany’s blue boxes. She then travels to the jeweler’s flagship boutique as she explains her vision for the Tiffany campaign (see story).
Tiffany & Co. — “Some Style is Legendary” documentary
Versace’s Dylan Blue campaign
Versace goes all MMA
Italian fashion label Versace is telling a cinematic story of modern masculinity to launch its latest cologne.
Shot by photographer Bruce Weber, the black-and-white campaign film for the Dylan Blue scent stars a cast of models and fighters, who come together for a vintage-inspired of friendly rivalry and friendship. While scent can be difficult to communicate via digital mediums, consumers may be able to associate with this group of friends and therefore the fragrance.
A narrator begins to explain that his father was prone to saying, “You can’t live with women and you can’t live without them.”
From there, the scene changes to show the inside of a gym, where the men and Ms. Hadid are training. They box each other and perform flips and kicks as the narrator explains that the lone woman can out kick box the men (see story).
Versace #DylanBlue | A film by Bruce Weber