“Lady Gaga is in!” Four words I still remember listening during a call with our business partners. Getting her to collaborate with our campaign was a big win and the timing of her campaign worked to perfection. She was about to launch her new makeup brand ‘Haus Labs’ during Amazon Prime Day. So as part of the campaign, we created an exclusive color featured on the spot. Using instagram, people who engaged with our exclusive lips stickers, got an invitation to pre-order the lip crayon.
It sold out instantly.
Taylor Swift was probably the “easiest” of campaigns. Not because it was an easy spot, but because she’s surrounded by an extremely talented team that run this project like a well oiled machine. They understood the brief from the first moment we talked about it. They recommended the perfect song and they collaborated with us from beginning to end seamlessly. We also had to fly to LA to listen the song for the first time inside a van, on an ipod to make sure it was offline and for a very short period of time. if there was ever an album leak, I can guarantee you it was not us.
This campaign included a signed-posters give away via Twitter, and a fun Instagram activation to identify various easter eggs on the spot, including celebrity cameos featured on the ‘You Need to Calm Down’ Music video and of course, her cat.
We started working on this campaign while Chance was still working on "‘The Big Day’ album. When we aligned on “Sun Come Down” as the featured track, it felt like such an intimate song that we knew we wanted to stay true to his Chicago roots. While brainstorming with Buck, we thought ‘what if it’s all just black and white and drawn frame by frame instead of using cgi for this one?’ It was not an easy sell, or process, as showing progress with this technique was quite challenging. But fortunately, our Amazon Music business partners trusted us to deliver a spot to remember.
Chance was such a perfectionist that he actually re-recorded the a-capella after he saw the cut, for it to match perfectly with the visuals. Working with him and his team was a one in a lifetime experience.
Last but not least, Alicia Keys. She was the last artist on our ‘A Voice Is All you Need’ campaign series. Working with her and her team, we knew we wanted to try something different. Her song, ‘Underdog’ had very strong vocals we wanted to bring to life by partnering with an artist that could inspire the narrative. This is when Alicia proposed her good friend SWOON. I was in awe, as I’ve been a big fan of Swoon’s work over the years. In collaboration with Buck, she provided specific elements from some of her pieces which we merged to bring the Underdog story to life.
As part of the campaign, Swoon created an original portrait of Alicia which was transformed into limited edition signed prints that were given away on Instagram.
