The Endurance of Love Stories
Many of the world’s most enduring literary classics are about resonating love stories. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, Boris Pasternak’s Dr. Zhivago and Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet are but some notable examples.
Love stories have a timeless appeal and as the lyrics from a song in the Broadway musical ‘Carnival’ insightfully proclaims; ‘Love Makes The World Go Round’.
1. Wrigley’s Extra Gum, The Story of Sarah and Juan
Advertising Agency: Energy BBDO
Directed by Pete Riski, this engaging love story is still being watched three years after it was released on YouTube and has surpassed the 22 million, last recorded view-mark. Many viewers claim to have watched the commercial several times and each view brought tears to their eyes.
2. Wrigley’s Extra Gum, Haley Reinhart
The soundtrack features a new rendition of Elvis Presley’s ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’ sung by Haley Reinhart and won a Gold Clio Award for use of music in a short film.
3. Oppo SmartPhones, Two Little Planets
Advertising Agency: Godzilla, Shanghai
The commercial for China’s leading smartphone brand Oppo, is a charming love story about two young people who occupy their own, separate metaphorical little planets.
The four minute long ‘mini-movie’ stars popular Chinese actors Yang Mi and Zhang Binbin, and was directed by Henry Scholfield. It is a visual delight with breathtaking special effects by boutique design and VFX house Fin, based in Sydney and Shanghai.
4. CHANEL No5, Night Train
Directed by Jean Pierre Jeunet, this classic commercial with its stylish imagery stars French actress Audrey Tautou. The story about a romantic encounter on the famous Orient Express train from Paris to Istanbul plays out against the haunting strains of Billie Holiday’s ‘I’m A Fool To Want You’.
Conceived in-house by Chanel, the commercial is a fitting homage to the brand’s long heritage of sophisticated French elegance and legendary seductive influence in passionate affairs of the heart.
5. CHANEL No5, The Film
This classic commercial directed by Buz Luhrman, stars Nicole Kidman and Rodrigo Santoro.
Conceived and produced in-house by Chanel, it cost 27 million US dollars. Communication industry commentators at the time were mystified about why Chanel would invest such a huge sum of money in what they perceived to be a short film with echoes of the movie ‘Moulin Rouge’ (also staring Nicole Kidman) rather than a commercial.
But with hindsight, it is now considered to be a groundbreaking brand communication initiative of effectively providing viewers with a romantic story that heightened the level of rewarding viewing experiences. A conventional commercial would have been hard-pressed to attain the same level of emotive resonance.