Here’s the background to another Emotive campaign with cut through in bucket loads: “Optus needed something that would get noticed for the biggest release of the year. Cue a huge idea starring and directed by Cuba Gooding Jr. The insight and idea behind the commercial was simple. The new iPhone on Optus speaks for itself. It’s a great phone, a great network and you don’t have to see it or really know anything more about it to know why you want it.”
So Emotive hosted a fake casting session for an iPhone XS ad. Thirty actors pitched up and were told to look at an empty podium and imagine the new iPhone on Optus. They were filmed reality television style as Gooding Jr. sat in the director’s chair instructing them.
It’s a mixture of quirky idea and brilliant delivery by Cuba Gooding Jr … plus whoever was pulling the strings behind the scenes to motivate the spot’s actors performances deserves an ad award all to him- or her-self. And director, Zane Pearson, has pieced these together in a way that escalates wonderfully into a crescendo of irresistible silliness – and endorsement – for the new iPhone on Optus.
“Their reactions were genuine, unfiltered and captured in one take….and most importantly they had no idea the audition would turn out to be the actual commercial,” Emotive promises. “Once again ,we are using our Social to Scale process as an integral part of the go-to-market plan, with long form social (90 second) to seed and test and then iterating via 30-second, 15-second and 6-second TVCs.
The actors were chosen from a “casting call’ by Gooding Jr. to audition for an Optus commercial. Some were everyday Aussies who had submitted videos and some were trained actors were chosen to audition.
https://youtu.be/v8dGeiLBWb4
Melissa Hopkins, head of consumer marketing, Optus, commented, “At Optus, we like to challenge the status quo and with this commercial we did that. We placed up-and-coming Aussie actors in front of a Hollywood director to capture their genuine reactions in an unscripted and spontaneous reality-television style commercial, which is a really innovative concept for a marketing campaign.
“The finished commercial is a combination of CCTV footage and audition tape, because we knew that a phone this good didn’t need a big scripted ad. We love working with Cuba because he always brings spontaneity and creativity to the set, and he absolutely did that in the role of director for this shoot.”
https://youtu.be/85luvItSZ7w
Credits:
Creative & Production Agency: Emotive
Chief Executive Odfficer & Strategy Lead: Simon Joyce
Business Directors: Alison Mitchell & Aimee Stewart
Creative Director & Director: Zane Pearson
Senior Creative: Rory Pearson
Additional Creative: Gary Eck
Senior Producer: Alistair Pratten
Director of Photography: Simon Ozolins
Product Photography: Viv Scanu
Art Director: Miles Pitt
Editor: Uthayan Selvaraj
Sound Design & Composition: Chocolate Studios
https://youtu.be/r_DNEM4XBBQ
Client: Optus
Client Team: Melissa Hopkins, Michael Sinclair & Franz Siasat
