Secrets of Bahia
LaSCAD
Issue 38 | March 2016
Agency
Publicis Conseil
Creative Team
Executive Creative Director Cédric Guéret Copywriter Marie Jeunet Art Director Delphine Arnol-Dennemont AD Assistant Alexis Garnier
Production Team
Production company Fighting Fish Producer Cyril Couve de Murville Post-production Fix Studio Director of photography Jacques Ballard Account Director Brigitte Merval
Other Credits
Account Manager Isabelle Saillant Digital Account Manager Isabelle Garnier Deputy General Manager Eric Forest Strategic Planning Marine Catalan Digital Project Manager Leslie Besson
Date
September 2015
Background
Planet Ushuaia was a new range of personal-care products from l'Oreal aimed at men and women under 35, a group reckoned to be more in touch with nature and ethnicity. The name came from the southernmost city in the world, Ushuaia in Argentina and echoing the South American characteristics of the brand, the new products were made with natural ingredients sourced mostly in South America.
Idea
How is it that the women in far-flung places are able to look naturally beautiful? It is because they know the properties of many of the plants and flowers that grow around them and can put them to good use.
The Amazon Indians, for instance, have always known that the milk of the babassu nut nourishes and protects their hair.
To prove the authenticity of the ingredients in their new range, Ushuaia sent the well-known ethnologist Émilie Barrucand to the state of Bahia in Brazil. She trekked over 14,000 kilometres, meeting women and getting to know their beauty secrets.
A series of four webisodes about her journey and discoveries were uploaded to YouTube and Facebook.
(Episode 1: https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=MjouVd7gvIg)
Results
There were over 2 million views of the videos videos in just a few weeks. Episode 1 had over one million views on YouTube alone.
In tracking studies, brand preference scores lifted to 30%.
Our Thoughts
Branded content is the wild west of advertising. Because it is very different to the old concept-driven model around which traditional agencies have built themselves, a host of new companies have all piled in looking to map out territories for themselves. We have seen content creators such as Casey Neistat make online films for Nike, Mercedes et al, and production companies have found they too can have personal relationships with marketing chiefs. Agencies weren’t going to watch idly for long before learning how to produce content themselves and here’s proof of it, 25 minutes of genuinely interesting documentary footage out of Publicis. No concept. But an idea about the natural beauty of the people of Bahia and a girl in conversation about topics that are interesting to women everywhere.
This is a radically different approach for a l’Oreal brand. I really hope it works so it encourages them to be bolder with some of their bigger brands.