If a woman on a horse with a chandelier on her head wasn’t striking enough, the next edition of The&Partnership’s Argos Home campaign, So Stylish You Can Wear It, also gently mocks the fashion advertising it mimics – the humour adding a note of freshness to a memorable campaign. Its dream-like quality is underlined by a “fashion film” voiceover commenting on each scene with statements such as, I’m an enigma, I’m a mystery; I look at life differently, that’s why I’m lying down and I’m holding a duck.
The 2020 spring/summer campaign is fronted by model and actress, Suki Waterhouse and includes a TVC, OOH, press, AR Instagram filter, and a spoof behind-the-scenes film. The TVC went to air on Sunday, March 15 during Homeland on Channel 4.
The commercial was directed by David Kerr through Hungryman. He explained, “As a comedy director, most of the scripts I’m sent are dialogue-driven; people saying and reacting to funny stuff. I loved that this script was full of amazing imagery and that the voiceover acted as a comic counterpoint. I wanted the film to play with the po-faced profundity we sometimes see in perfume commercials – and for the absurdity to build in a gradual, incremental way. I couldn’t have been happier with Suki Waterhouse’s performance. She’s a great comic actress. She worked tirelessly with me to nail the nuanced tone we were trying to hit – and she understands the power of a raised eyebrow as well as anyone since Roger Moore.”
Mark Given, chief marketing officer at Sainsbury’s Argos, stated, “The Argos Home So Stylish You Can Wear It campaign has been a great success to date, so we were really excited with this new creative idea. Suki Waterhouse’s comic performance is pitched in a perfect fashion while the style and quality of Argos’s Home spring/summer range really come through.”
Waterhouse added, “This campaign playfully weaves home and fashion together, bringing what we might consider as everyday Argos objects to life in a really fun unexpected way. I’ve never considered nor been asked to model a carpet as couture nor an armchair as an accessory but the result is a campaign I doubt viewers will forget in a hurry.”
Yan Elliott, executive creative director at The&Partnership, commented, “Our foray into the fashion world goes one step further with this year’s spring/summer range for Argos. Top model and actress, Suki Waterhouse perfumes her inner thoughts and musings as she wears the very latest in fashionable furniture, not just in the film, but with an AR filter too.”
The new campaign aims to build on the momentum of the SS19 and AW19 Home campaigns. The latter drove more than 7 in 10 people to agree that Argos sells more stylish homewares and furniture, and 8 in 10 people to agree that Argos sells higher quality products, than they previously thought. (Source, Savanta 2019).
Here are the stories of those two campaigns:
The&Partnership & Argos: A woman on a horse with a chandelier on her head
Credits:
Agency: The & Partnership London
Executive Creative Directors: Yan Elliott & Micky Tudor
Creatives: Carl Storey & Alice Burton
Planning Partner: Rebecca Munds
Senior Planner: Matt Shaw
Managing Director: Gary Simmons
Senior Account Director: Lucy Almond
Senior Account Manager: Hannah Gray
Head Of Integrated Production: Charles Crisp
TV Producer: Alfie Glover Short
Head Of Art: Emma Modler
Print Producer: Angus Lees
Head Of Art: Marc Donaldson
Designer: Ailie Hutcheson
Retoucher: Richard Palmer
Production Company: Hungry Man
Director: David Kerr
Executive Producer: Matt Buels
Production Company Producer: Stephen Johnson
DoP: Simon Chaudoir
Costume Designer: Verity Hawkes
Production Designer: Laura Ellis Cricks
Editor: Adam Spivey @ Assembly Rooms
Audio Post Production: Munzie Thind @ Grand Central Recording Studios
VFX & Post Production: MPC
Post Producer: Phil Whalley
VFX Supervisor: Tom Harding
Colourist: Jean-Clément Soret
Music Supervision: Finger Music
Composers: Samuel Richard Burden & Christopher Phelps
