Telling ‘The Story of UN’ through South African Voices
What does it mean to ‘Unlimit Your Life’? With free reign on how they’d like to represent the ‘no limits’ mantra of The Unlimited, 21 creators and 15 directors – all from South Africa – shared what it meant to be creatively free and utterly themselves. Working alongside Joe Public, the design agency’s newest campaign really gives the audience a sense of the country’s inclusive, creative reach.
Colourful and fast-paced, 'The Story of UN' merges several different filmmaking styles – including the use of animation – and features music, sport, robotics and much, much more. With so many collaborators, it’s no surprise there were over 100 video assets and 70 billboards to incorporate, taking over six months to create the finished campaign. Throughout the piece, it’s clear that the creatives involved took it upon themselves to create something totally unique, yet embedded within South African creativity and a reflection of the country’s different styles.
Joe Public’s executive creative director Brendan Hoffman and business unit director Lizanne Peters tell LBB’s Nisna Mahtani about the “Scary, exciting, chaotic, fun but most of all, incredibly rewarding” process of creating this spot.
LBB> What was the initial brief for this piece and how did it evolve into the campaign we now see?
Brendan & Lizanne> The initial brief was very simple. The Unlimited is a company that has been around for 28 years and who have a large customer base. Until now, their success has been based on a world-class and proven sales system with a trial first approach. Having never advertised before, their awareness to the broader public was very low. The question they asked us at Joe Public is, ‘how can we get more people to know The Unlimited brand’? From the brief, we developed the strategic idea that The Unlimited should allow all South Africans the opportunity to ‘Unlimit’ their life. So, in a nutshell, we had only two main objectives - get people to remember The Unlimited (awareness) and inspire them to want to ‘Unlimit Your Life’ (emotional connection).
LBB> 21 creators and 15 directors. What was it like to have all that creativity in one space?
Brendan & Lizanne> Scary, exciting, chaotic, fun but most of all, incredibly rewarding! The idea to empower each of the creators to interpret their stories in their own way meant that we ended up with a campaign that has so many flavours and tones, something which would not have been possible without us giving up control and allowing 100% freedom of expression.
From the early stages of the campaign, we decided that for a company that is called The Unlimited, we needed our campaign to live up to its name and be unlimited too. We democratised the budget, allowing each creator to be rewarded for their part in the campaign, but also to have the freedom to tell their story in their own way. We hope the success of the campaign can inspire other brands to do the same.
LBB> How did you decide on the creatives you featured? What was the process?
Brendan & Lizanne> The initial step was for our creative team, Jeanine Vermaak (writer) and Natalie Walker (art director) to write the manifesto script. This became the backbone of not just the campaign, but The Unlimited business as well. The introduction of the ‘UN’ words and phrases gave us a platform to tell a unified story of what it means to ‘Unlimit Your Life’. But what we realised is that each line of the manifesto also allowed us to tell individual stories of how one person unlimits their own life.
The process was to find collaborators for each line of the manifesto, who are each in turn unlimiting their lives in a way that is applicable to that line. For example, ‘Unmute and damn the consequence’ would work well for a singer, but was even better for a singer who had faced adversity - hence our selection of Belinda Ka-Fassie, an incredibly talented drag singer. ‘Unbullied by the likes of you’ came from a now popular Instagram personality who had to deal with being bullied and teased about her looks earlier in her life. Each creator was then given the opportunity to write and produce their own story, unscripted by us. Where needed, they could request a director or an editor, and many of them produced their own videos with friends and associates. We then waited to see what would come back from them, and when we did, we were blown away.
LBB> And how did you ensure everything worked harmoniously together? Tell us about the editing process, how did it go?
Brendan & Lizanne> Our Joe Public production team led by Yash Raidu, and the incredible team at Bioscope Films oversaw the production of the TV ad and coordinated the 21 creator videos. The editing process was very complex. Scenes from each creator video were selected for each line of the manifesto, and then edited together to create the TV ad. Fausto Becatti, our lead director shot additional scenes to create a common thread that pulls us through the edit in a cohesive and dynamic way. A golden thread that manifested in the form of a hero character; a fresh, young and exciting female character who carries us through the story and who grounds the edit. To make it more complex we also created several versions of the final TV ad (two min, 90s, 60s, 30s and several 15s versions.)
LBB> There are several different filming styles, locations and people within this project, which must have taken time to showcase. From start to finish, how long did it take to create?
Brendan & Lizanne> The concept and production took about six months and then additional time to create the other elements in the campaign. There were over 100 video assets, 70 billboards, an unusual and technical microsite, and an extensive influencer and social media campaign.
LBB> What does it mean to ‘Unlimit Your Life’ and how does that tie into South African creativity?
Brendan & Lizanne> To ‘Unlimit Your Life’ means to be free to take control of your life, your dreams and aspirations, and to do the things you want to do. The campaign shows how different that can be for a variety of people and we hope to inspire others to unlimit their own lives in a way that is authentic and true to them. On a creative level, we hope that this campaign inspires the creative industry to be more unlimited in their approach, to involve more creators in their campaigns and empower them to play a real part in the work, not just at face value but with real collaboration.
LBB> The narrator carries the audience along with the imagery of the piece. How did you decide on using the manifesto as the dialogue and did it need any adjustments to work within the campaign?
Brendan & Lizanne> The manifesto was written for the TV ad but it became far more than that. It inspired the brand CI and has become the voice of the brand, both externally and internally. ‘UN’ words are now seen in all parts of the business and throughout their marketing and CRM communications. The amazing thing is that not one word of the manifesto changed from the first script presented to the final ad produced. It was our piece of solid ground to stand on whilst everything else was moving. This wasn’t something we had to fight for, The Unlimited marketing team insisted from the start on not changing one word of The Story of UN.
LBB> What has the reaction to the campaign been like so far?
Brendan & Lizanne> The campaign has received an overwhelmingly positive response. There has been great positive sentiment indicating that the campaign has captured attention and resonates with South African audiences. From a performance perspective, the campaign’s also tracking phenomenally well and exceeding expectations. Both The Unlimited and #UnlimitYourLife trended on Twitter for the full day of the launch.
LBB> Would you like to share anything else?
Brendan & Lizanne> We see this campaign as a new way to do things. We hope to see other brands following suit to not just put collaborators in their work, but to allow those collaborators to create.
