On August 17, following the hottest July on record for New York City, with heat records being set in a number of U.S. cities, air-conditioner brand Midea teamed up with creative agency Pereira O’Dell (part of the Serviceplan Group) to treat New Yorkers to a 90-minute film featuring the Midea U, at Manhattan cinema Village East by Angelika.
New Yorkers were able to escape the heat of the city to the air conditioned cinema, to attend the premiere of 90 minutes of air conditioning–a feature length film about an air conditioner cooling a New York City apartment–accompanied by free popcorn and soda.
Pereira O’Dell Entertainment conceived the Warholian 90-minute film starring the air conditioning unit the Midea U, seizing the moment of the record-breaking NYC summer heatwave. Brody Bernheisel directed via Barrelhouse Productions.
Attendees of the premiere were offered a discount on a Midea AC unit, so that they could bring the air-conditioned movie-watching experience home. The draw is the chill, not the content. The film may make you fall asleep. It simply shows a Midea AC unit cooling an apartment with a person occasionally coming into frame.
Sixty (this ScreenWork entry) and 15 second clips of 90 Minutes of Air Conditioning will run on social channels and give more people the chance to “watch” the film, and laugh at the insider joke riffing on the NYers' habit of going to an air conditioned cinema to escape summer heatwaves.
Rather than tell people to turn off the phones, as is usual at the cinema, the film encouraged people to keep theirs on, chat during the movie, watch something on their phones and enjoy being cool.
Robert Lambrechts, chief creative officer, Pereira O’Dell, described the 90 minutes of a single product shot as “likely the longest product placement in the history of advertising.”
Pereira said the idea for the marketing video came about three weeks ago, when he and other New Yorkers were enduring brutal temperatures in the city. He said, “Viewers can just get dry and get their body temperature to a reasonable place, check their emails, make a couple phone calls if they want. It’s the same shot for 90 minutes. Nothing else happens.”
The Midea brand, which is heaquartered in China, is using this campaign to break into the U.S. market. The film showcases its Midea U model, which is designed to have a window seal close over it, rather than having one that requires people to seal up with sides with duct tape or foam, making New York the best place to launch the brand and product, according to Lambrechts. The campaign will feature OOH as well and will hopefully expand outside of New York in the future.
CreditsClient Midea Agency Pereira O’Dell PJ Pereira, creative chairman; Rob Lambrechts, chief creative officer; Nick Sonderup, executive creative director; Fernando Passos, Julie Rutigliano, creative directors; Cain Luke, copywriter; Monica Andrade, art director; Eduardo “Dudu” Gomez, head of art; Luis Bacellar, design director; Gabriel Iatchuk, designer; John Redmond, brand strategy director; Darbi Fretwell, executive producer; Kasia Olczak, producer. Production Barrelhouse Productions Brody Bernheisel, director; Josh Diaz, director of content production; Rob Cristiano, line producer; Darin Quan, DP; Patrick Nichols, production coordinator; Mitchell Hunter, editor; Brad Lowery, lead motion graphics designer; Michael Giron, post producer. Mix & Sound Design Levology Sound Joel Hopper, mixer, sound designer. Color Nick Sanders, colorist. Special thanks to: Noah Fowler, DP.
Director Gia Coppola Teams With Mejuri For “A New York Minute”; 1st Episode Takes Us To The Grocery Store
Mejuri, known for turning fine jewelry into an everyday luxury, has partnered with director Gia Coppola (The Last Show Girl, Palo Alto) and The Directors Bureau in Los Angeles, for the first time reimagining the brand’s story as episodic content. In a series of microfilms, co-created by Coppola and premiering following New York Fashion Week, Mejuri eschewed a typical celebrity campaign and cast us as voyeurs to a group of aspiring young women--real people, not actors--at the crossroads of their adult lives against the backdrop of New York City.
Titled “A New York Minute,” the series features five real-life friends, who include one perfectly imperfect heroine named Emma. The women celebrate ordinary moments and interactions which reveal, sometimes retrospectively, the extraordinary within the mundane. Adjacent to the brand’s own community, the 30-something year old cast includes Laura Love (Emma), Rebecca Ressler, Natalie Vall-Freed and Rozzi Crane. Mejuri’s jewelry makes an appearance as the best supporting actor.
“When I met with Gia and The Directors Bureau team, there was instant creative and personal chemistry and a natural alignment on the desire to push and blur the lines between marketing, storytelling, and the construct of what a ‘campaign’ could be,” said Jacob Jordan, chief brand officer, Mejuri. “Gia was able to push that idea into something that truly feels new and artful, with a realism and relatability that almost feels jarring. Gia was such a perfect collaborator and partner, someone I had complete trust in to be a catalyst for Mejuri’s values of celebrating women as their truest selves. I can’t wait for us to continue to tell the next chapters of this story.”
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