Certified fun and excellence
Entertainment and emotional connection are at the root of effective work… as a campaign from MRM demonstrates
Awards often go to the most innovative, eye-catching, provocative work. They might feature a hot issue, breakthrough technology or a big transformation that can’t help but catch the attention.
But at Cresta, you can also win with something altogether more… pragmatic. With the kind of communication that does the basic work of building a brand with such finesse that the jury can only hand out high marks.
There’s a strong vein of these brilliant but somewhat understated winners: it is a fun and educational journey to check through our 2020 awards archive to spot this sparkling work that does the core job of selling really well.
Leading the way in this genre, if that’s what it is, would be the hugely enjoyable ‘Certified Story Time’ films created by MRM McCann for Chevrolet, Buick & GMC Certified Pre-Owned Vehicles.
Yes, that doesn’t sound so sexy. You might even think ‘used cars’ but wash your mind out of that idea… these films make a Certified vehicle thoroughly desirable. They’re beautifully written and art directed by MRM and channel shades of Wes Anderson in the gorgeous direction of Lena Beug (through Station Films in Los Angeles).
Below, MRM Creative Director Tiffany Moy-Miller explains how these little gems came about.
Cresta It is lovely to see strong storytelling in our winners. How did this campaign come to be written... how did the idea emerge from the strategy?
Tiffany Moy-Miller Our client really understood the need to breakthrough and educate around the messaging about used cars versus certified cars. We needed to lead to the emotional side: whether new or used, people want to be excited. A car is the second most expensive thing they will buy. We had to overcome that people don’t understand what ‘certified’ means.
There are so many used-car buying tropes out there. We needed to added in a level of education. Our strategist landed on the simple premise of ‘happiness’. It was our north star… we needed to give the peace of mind without specifically saying that. We wanted to set out and do what used car advertising doesn’t do. And that is to be entertaining, emotional, educational.
As the team looked at best way to create happiness we arrived on: ‘better vehicles make for better stories’. We could change it by the kind of narrator we used, take different cues from all sorts of sources out there to make a new way of telling a story.
It is interesting how you have a very strong narrator.
For the narrator, we didn’t have a budget for a celebrity but we imagined it would be somebody very ‘human’, with a deadpan delivery, tongue-in-cheek. And then we ended up with something totally different!
So there’s a Twilight Zone weirdness, with somebody popping in and out. Also a Marvel movie, Ant Man, in there, lip-synching banter. And we drew from Wes Anderson colour and symmetry. But not too much, not borrowed interest. We pulled from everywhere and mixed it all up.
Where do you start?
We started with the real stories first. Our clients had specific things to talk about, such as the warranties, the inspections, etc. We started with the storylines that supported that.
Then we knew the narrator would pop in and out to punctuate bits of the storytelling.
Along the way, our clients asked if we could do the story based on things that had really happened in the dealership. That could go two ways. It could have been really dry… or it could embrace what we could do with them.
How do you know when it is done? When enough is enough, not too over-the-top?
Somehow we were all keeping each other in balance. We wanted them to be fantastical versions of stories that you could still believe.
Finding the right director was important — we needed a treatment that would set our minds at ease and bring something new to it.
We thought we knew who we wanted to use… but then we found Lena! Her treatment played into our idea and yet somehow elevated it further. She addressed colour and the kind of character she wanted, pushed us further but did not take anything away from what we had. The banter and the words on the page were pretty tight, but she was prepared to push us a little, extend things out, and working with her to do that landed us in some great territory.
It was important that having hired the director we let her bring to it what we saw in her. We all bought into the vision.
The campaign, which won Gold and Bronze at Cresta, is a lot of fun to watch but clearly has some serious business objectives to meet. It’s easy to forget how complex are the campaigns these films support.
Yes, we needed a zillion assets in post-production… so we had to create all of our content in the shoot for an entire integrated campaign, covering of all the angles and for every format.
And how did it go down when you showed it first?
The clients loved it. We’d like to get a bit more money to make more, but we can’t say at this point.
MRM is committed to creating work like this that connects with customers: we’re all about relationships.
To conclude, can you give us insight into what excites you personally at present?
Well, with Certified Story Time there was much to be inspired by. We had a female director, female production, it happened over International Women’s Day… that was great. That excites me. There are opportunities to change the ratio on under-represented people. That excites me. We are telling stories that are so much more inclusive than ever. Choosing a black narrator, hiring a female director. And I am female and Asian: I am a double whammy!
So I am excited to be part of this work and what we can do in this industry.
Tiffany Moy-Miller tries the hot seat on the set of Certified Story Time, Cresta winner
