Video storytelling for Armin Strom
To present the Dual Time GMT Resonance at Geneva Watch Days, the Swiss watch brand Armin Strom commissioned us to make a video storytelling film: “The Duel”.
Halfway between an ad and a comedy documentary, the film features the brand’s two founders, Serge Michel and Claude Greisler, playing themselves. They clash over an absurd question: the color of the new watch’s strap.
Video storytelling in service of a product launch
Brief
Create a film to present Armin Strom’s new watch, unveiled at Geneva Watch Days, and to put the brand’s two founders in the spotlight.
A video storytelling campaign inspired by The Office, halfway between advertising and mockumentary. The two executives play themselves in a funny, unexpected story, cut into several lengths for social media and press events.
Shake up the codes of watch marketing without losing the brand’s elegance, direct two CEOs who are not actors, and shoot “pranks” in real conditions, including one with a brand-new Porsche.
How the film works
To present the watch, we chose to tell a story. The Dual Time GMT Resonance becomes the trigger for a fictional conflict between Serge Michel and Claude Greisler, who cannot agree on the color of the strap: black or white. The humor serves the brand image as much as the product.
The film is shot in the style of The Office: handheld camera, awkward zooms, silences that say a lot. In one scene, a Porsche falls victim to a prank that is a little too realistic. The two founders play their parts with plenty of self-mockery, which makes the company feel close and human.
The film exists in a long version, for the press and Geneva Watch Days, and in short clips for social media. It was very well received in the watch world, which is not used to this tone.
All About Video Storytelling
telling?
Video storytelling means telling a story in images instead of describing a product. The product or service lives inside a narrative that creates emotion and strengthens the brand image. In “The Duel”, the new watch is what sparks the conflict between the founders.
Because a good story is remembered better than a sales pitch. It creates an emotional bond with the audience, avoids a head-on product presentation and makes the brand likeable.
A classic ad lists arguments to sell. Storytelling relies on identification, humor and emotion, and gives viewers a moment inside the brand’s world. It is the difference between showing a watch and telling the story of two founders arguing about the color of its strap.
Strong, believable characters, a clear conflict and clear stakes, a solid narrative structure and a visual style that fits the brand’s world. It also needs an emotion, without which the audience remembers nothing.
All of them. A watch brand, a tech company or an NGO each have a story to tell, and video makes it possible to adapt the tone, style and narrative to each audience and each channel.
Yes, and that is often where it works best: clips, series of short formats, stories told in several episodes. That is the idea behind the clips of “The Duel”.
