Challenge

In anticipation of social and digital needs for the fiscal year ahead, Absolut Vodka sought to capture an entire years’ worth of content up-front. Based upon seasonality and cultural moments, Absolut identified a variety of themes and events that would be relevant to the brand’s marketing efforts. In order to maximize the versatility of the images, they developed a brief for the project, which outlined highly curated scenes with a variety of Absolut products and serves, shot to be cropped in a wide range of aspect ratios.

Insights

Brands often struggle to meet seasonal content needs, leading to last minute shoots, rush fees, and/or missed marketing opportunities. Content shoots take time and planning to execute; in order to anticipate seasonal or long-term needs, much foresight is needed.

To allow for content creation and processing lead time, seasonality may prohibit the ease at which an outdoor or holiday shoot, for example, can be executed. Depicting Fall leaves in May, snow in September or a picnic in January present logistical issues that can be costly to solve. Additionally, staging specific, well-developed themes may require unique set builds, time and a large team; whereas individual, one-off shoots may seem more easily executed, but the result can be limited. Additionally, one-off shoots can often be expensive in the long run, yielding assets with too little variance, either in appearance and/or in versatility of application.

Image versatility does not just apply to aesthetic; each use case presents a different size need, which is best anticipated on-set. Most images for social media work within a set handful of aspect ratios or crops; as long as the image fits within a social media platform’s parameter, images will post in such a manner that crops to display, but allows for full image viewing when expanded. For digital applications – like web banners and email campaigns, for example – the desired aspect ratios are widely varied. In addition, if text overlay is desired for a slogan, call to action or promotion, space must allow for text overlay.

In short, an image that works well/looks amazing for one application may lack the versatility for another application. Unless scenes are framed with this in mind, content needs could arise with each new usage.

Solution

Absolut Vodka hired Ford Media Lab to capture an entire years’ worth of digital content in one photoshoot.

Holidays: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Winter Celebrations, New Year’s Eve
Sports: Basketball/Football/Baseball, both at home viewing and Tailgate
Cultural Moments and Themes: Brunch, Festival Season, Home Entertainment, LGBTQ/PRIDE

FML determined that the best course of action would be to shoot over four days, each day including 2-3 scenes/unique sets, with a variety of props, serves and talent. Following FML’s extensive pre-production planning – including mood boards and prop selection – FML assembled a highly-skilled team of prop, wardrobe, food and beverage stylists. Two NYC locations were identified: Ford Media Lab’s studio in Brooklyn and an outdoor space in Manhattan. A detailed shot list was compiled to include still and GIF deliverables, accounting for various Absolut products, cocktail serves and desired aspect ratios.

Results

11 seasonal and holiday themes captured over 4 shoot days in 2 locations
65 still images / 10 GIFs, each delivered as:
- 1x1
- 9x16
- Web banner