(Editor’s note: Last week, SHOOT reported on the debut of Silverscreen in the context of it being one of several recent examples showcasing advertiser interest in establishing new creative channels to build brand and sales. Now we provide greater detail on the new venture, including its creative genesis and consumer tracking/metrics capabilities.)
On Nov. 7, high-end retailer Nordstrom launched Nordstrom Silverscreen, a branded, interactive multimedia channel created by Fallon, Minneapolis. The new channel offers broadband video content that combines fashion, music, technology, and pop culture.
Roughly 2.5 million email invitations went out to customers who had opted in to receive information from the retailer, asking them to download the Silverscreen channel, which is powered by technology from Maven Networks, Cambridge, Mass. In addition to the emails, ecards will go out, and shoppers can forward the information on the channel to friends and family. In addition to the emails, there were also print ads in magazines like Entertainment Weekly.
Premiering on the channel will be music video remixes, as well as “rooms” where shoppers can personalize outfits on mannequins. In addition to videos, the Silverscreen channel will offer a mixing room where shoppers can create new personalized remixes of the song by mixing and matching clothes on a mannequin.
The first video to debut is a remix of the Go-Go’s “Our Lips Are Sealed.” In addition to a remix of the song by Fatboy Slim, director Olivier Gondry of bicoastal/international Partizan created a remix of the song’s video. In the updated version, the Go-Gos are seen riding in a convertible and frolicking in a fountain; at the same an updated crew of models mimics their moves, wearing fashions available at Nordstrom (users can click on the clothing to purchase it). A second video/song remix, Culture Club’s “I’ll Tumble For You” will premiere next month. In that video (also directed by Gondry), DJ Junkie XL, who remixed the song, appears alongside Boy George; supermodel Naomi Campbell will appear as a tap dancer. Like the Go-Gos video remix, the second will also feature items from the retailer. (Michel Gondry, Olivier Gondry’s brother, served as an executive producer on the project.)
“There’s a dual purpose to this,” explains Susan Treacy, group creative director at Fallon. “One is a branding effort. Overall, we’re trying to elevate [Nordstrom’s] fashion authority. • The second is to make [shoppers] more aware of the selection of what’s available at Nordstrom and to make them aware of how great it is. They can actually buy these pieces from the video and then in the mixing room component.”
Treacy related the positioning behind the work was Nordstrom’s fashion authority, and that tie-in between fashion and music seemed like a “natural one.” The idea for a remixed music video was born out of an idea for a meeting. “We were looking at a lot of music videos we were putting together for rip references for a meeting,” recalls Treacy, “and we began to notice in music videos, you not only get the performance by the artist, but the apparel the artist is wearing always looks really, really terrific. So we thought that we would create some content based on bringing music and films together, and we also knew about this technology that’s a delivery system for bringing things to desktops, so we knew that if we created Web content, we had a really innovative way to get into consumers’ hands. That was the logic.”
THE PROCESS
After Treacy and her team settled on the video remix as a way to present the entertainment aspect of the project, the hunt for the right music videos began. Brigette Whisnant, the senior producer on the project, began looking through clips that could work. “The key was to find music videos that not only were iconic and memorable,” says Whisnant, “but had something we felt we could take and add another line to, another story, and creatively have fun with.” Appropriate music videos were divided up by record label; both the Go-Gos and Culture Club were on labels in the EMI family.
The decision to go with Partizan and work with Olivier and Michel Gondry was an easy one, relates Whisnant, given the shop’s prowess with clips. She reports that Michel Gondry provided a “broad-stroke position” on the project, providing insight into which clips would translate best as remixes. Olivier Gondry fit the bill as director because “he is truly a mastermind in terms of technology,” she notes. Before pursuing directing, Gondry worked in visual effects with shops like Method, Santa Monica, and Buf Compagnie, Paris. “It was like watching a mad scientist on the set. He’d do a shot and he’d measure it from him to the actress on the green screen, and run back to look at it on the monitor,” explains Whisnant, “to make sure that was going to match depth-wise and structurally with the footage he was going to be matting the new footage onto.” (Jack FX, Venice, Calif handled effects on the project.)
The technology behind the channel allows it to live on a user’s desktop, updating content with no effort from a shopper. Entertainment content will be updated on a monthly basis–after the Culture Club video, an animated piece by Ruben Toledo, who created the print ads for the Silverscreen initiative, will premiere in January. “It opens a channel with the consumer, so once the consumer has downloaded this application, it automatically feeds new content to them as it’s available,” explains Tom Kunau, the interactive producer on the Silverscreen project. “So you as the user don’t have to go to a Web site, click a link, and wait for a download. It’s just one day you open up your computer and this little note is there that says, ‘hey the new culture club video is here.’ The content delivery is behind the scenes as your computer sits idle–it’s a cool way of keeping things in front of the consumer without being obnoxious.”
Kunau notes that the system has tracking and metrics built into it, so “not only will we know if a consumer bought a product as a result of looking at the Silverscreen application, but we’ll actually know whether they came to that product from the player, or the mixing room,” says Kunau. “We can get a little bit more of an indication of what people are interested in, what their behavior is like.”
Additional creative credits on the project include: executive creative director Paul Silburn; James Zucco, art director; Jen Stocksmith, copywriter; Kevin Flatt, executive creative director/interactive; Chris Wiggins, creative director/interactive; Christian Erickson, group head/art director, interactive; Eric Frost, group head/writer, interactive; Brian DiLorenzo, director of broadcast production, North America/executive producer; and T. Scott Major, designer/interactive.
