When Procter & Gamble decided it wanted to convey a more holistic view of parenting in its 2000 campaign for Pampers diapers, D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles, New York, came up with the concept of using animals in the wild. The idea, according to Graham Woodall, executive VP/executive creative director at the agency, was to "go beyond the diaper."
Previous efforts for Pampers had centered on the effectiveness of the diaper in preventing wetness, but there would be little or no focus on human babies this time around. Animals and their offspring, says Woodall, would convey the client’s new views in an "unexpected and creative way."
Procter & Gamble gave the new branding effort the nod in late fall of ’99, and handed the agency a delivery date of January 2000. Obviously, hiring a production crew to go out and shoot wild animals around the world was impractical, given the time frame. "Capturing baby animals learning to walk, run, or fly, was a massive logistical challenge by itself—never mind that we would have to be there just at the time an animal was giving birth, or teaching its offspring to fly, or whatever," says Woodall. Instead of attempting to stage such rare moments, the decision was made to rely entirely on stock footage.
The call went out to several stock houses around the country for specific imagery of parent animals nurturing their offspring, as well as for footage conveying parenting issues, such as sibling rivalry, back-talk and nutrition, from the animal kingdom. Within hours, the agency was flooded with footage. "The task then became relatively simple, though exhaustive, sorting through the mountain of imagery to find the right series of shots," recalls agency VP/executive producer Lynn Berntson. "In many ways, there was less to worry about than when you shoot the footage yourself. We sorted and sorted, but we knew precisely what we were looking for. It was tough, but it was also a lot of fun."
Animal House
Procter & Gamble ended up with its first-ever image spot for Pampers, called "Animals." Two other ads in the campaign, "Sibling Rivalry" and "Back Talk" also used animal footage. All three spots were set to the Rod Stewart song "Forever Young." In "Animals," a mother seal nuzzles her baby, and an elephant untangles an infant from a tree branch. The supered message follows: "We’re right behind you. Pampers, every step of the way."
What made the project doable from the onset, Berntson emphasizes, was the rapid and accurate response from the stock houses. "In a word, they were terrific," she says. "Enormously responsive and timely. We were handed only materials that we knew would provide something we could work with."
The Image Bank, a division of gettyone/Image Bank Films, New York, provided some of the material for the spots, and, got the footage (on 3/4-inch reels, in this case) to the agency within 24 hours. "You have to remember, we do this kind of thing all the time," explains Stacey Marsac, a sales account executive at gettyone/Image Bank Films. "When a client sends out a call, no matter how specific, we try to get the imagery to them by the next day."
Hot Shots Cool Cuts, New York, was another supplier of imagery to the Pampers project. Andrew Conti, director of sales at Hot Shots Cool Cuts, explains, "They called and said they needed animals and their babies. We have an enormous archive of baby animal footage to choose from. We had reels to them the next day, and approvals shortly afterwards."
To round out the search for the imagery, D’Arcy also explored video and film footage from wildlife filmmakers such as Jack Hanna and PBS’s Marty Stouffer. Once the agency found the footage it liked, it turned to Second Line Search, New York. That firm locates specific footage from film and video libraries, private archives, sources such as the Discovery Channel or the National Geographic Society and independent cinematographers, and returns the material to the client quickly and with all legal issues resolved. "Second Line is sort of like going to a broker," explains Berntson. "After you have pretty much exhausted your standard research skills, you go to them. I didn’t even know this business existed until we got involved in this project."
"We will do whatever is necessary to acquire the imagery and obtain the rights for the client," says Gina Ragusa, a sales executive at Second Line. "D’Arcy was running a little short of footage for the last Pampers commercial. It found additional imagery it was interested in obtaining, then contacted us to do the rest. We do all the bleeding for the client—finding the footage, securing the rights, and making certain that the stock itself is delivered in the format and time frame required."
Berntson is quick to note that stock footage usually won’t provide the same spontaneity as a live shoot. Under specific circumstances, however, it represents a viable—perhaps the only—alternative. When time and distance make shooting it yourself impractical, the stock houses can fill the need in a quick and more cost-effective manner. Image Bank and Hot Shots Cool Cuts represent tens of thousands of hours of footage, cross-indexed by subject and category. "There was never really any doubt that we would get what we were looking for," Berntson says. "Everything they did was greatly appreciated, and made the concept possible in the first place.
"For us to even consider shooting it ourselves," she continues, "we would have had to plan ahead for at least a year."z
