Brother International Web Commercial
Global electronics company Brother International tapped Awakened Films to produce a series of web commercials for products ranging from printers to label makers. This case study focuses on videos featuring Brother’s CUBE Plus Label Maker – a product designed for small business owners and crafters.
Hot off of a previous Brother commercial video project, we were approached with a difficult task: do it again – this time for the CUBE Plus Label Maker – and do it in half the time. We had exactly eight days for pre-production, two for production, and six days to deliver one full-length video and five social media snippets. We couldn’t wait to begin and had no time to lose.
Our agency partner, full-service marketing agency Ridge Marketing, provided a script but the tight deadline didn’t leave time to produce visual storyboards. Awakened Films got right to work brainstorming with the marketing agency to plan the visual narrative and locations, and crafted a detailed shot list to document each scene.
The videos featured a small party planning business that uses the label maker to put a creative touch on a child’s unicorn birthday party. We labelled unicorn pops, a unicorn cake, candy jars and so much more. The party planner would shop for supplies at a local boutique that, wouldn’t you know it, also happens to use the Brother product to label items in its store. The two scenarios would give us the creative space to put the label maker’s full potential on display.
With too little time to tightly plan each scene on our end, Awakened Films stepped up big time and found creative ways to tell a complex story.
Rob Quincy, Partner, CCO
Ridge Marketing & Design, LLC
One full day was set aside to capture both of the main portions of the story. The boutique was first and, because it was a real operating business, we needed to get in and out before business hours.
We then made the move to our kitchen and birthday scene locations.
Brother also requested that we demonstrate a variety of other professional uses for the label maker. With such a tight turnaround and mere seconds of available run time to work with, we constructed top-down shots of various props and tabletops to create the look of a teacher’s desk, a food store and a florist’s shop. This was a cost-effective solution, while still holding true to the pacing and tone of the video.
The corporate office scenes were shot ahead of time on a different set. This simple foresight gave us greater location variety while saving cost and time.
We hit the ground running with the edits, leveraging industry-standard editing software for the sharp animation and color-grading this video needed. While we remained focused on the video, the marketing agency produced a voiceover and custom graphics and sourced music options. The piece was coming together.
The full-length piece was then broken out into five “snippets” – 15 to 30-second clips for social media marketing. Repurposing content for different platforms is a great way to gain visibility without much additional financial investment. The client only needed the commercial in HD format, but we had decided to shoot in Ultra HD 4K to future-proof it and giving us more control of the footage in editing.
We finished on time, on budget and proud of the complex story that we were able to captured. The client loved it, the agency was happy and we’re proud of the results. “I’m very pleased with how the videos turned out. If Awakened Films didn’t bring such a creative vision, patience and efficiency, there’s no way we could have pulled this off,” noted Quincy.
Lawyer.com
Our quirky talking head endorsements went viral, making Lawyer.com a household name.
Lawyer.com
National Kidney Foundation
The NKF's conferences are shaping a new approach to kidney health. See how Awakened Films partnered with the NKF to expand their reach as an organization!
National Kidney Foundation
