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Saint Laurent and Addison Rae Make a Short Film?
How a luxury fashion brand tapped creators and celebrities for a new frontier of branded entertainment
Ali Kaltman
December 08, 2024
Brand: Saint Laurent
Campaign: As Time Goes By
Read time: 5 minutes
Today’s newsletter is brought to you by Popular Pays by Lightricks. See more about how top brands scale influencer marketing below.
💬 Overview 💬
Earlier this week, I read about Addison Rae starring in a Saint Laurent YouTube short film and was intrigued…
First off, I thought… wait, Saint Laurent produced a short film?
And then I thought (and maybe this was naive of me)… wait, Saint Laurent has a YouTube?
A few clicks and several hours of watching YouTube videos later I learned that:
Luxury brands are killing it on YouTube.
Their long-form content is so well-produced.
YouTube has become a space for luxury brands to show off their artistic depth.
So for today’s TBM, I wanted to dive deeper into Saint Laurent’s most recent YouTube series and what it means for the future of creators & luxury brands.
Let’s get into it…
💙 The Branded Moment 💙
Saint Laurent blended fashion, literature, and art using Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time as its main inspiration for its latest campaign.
The brand created 6 short films telling stories inspired by the novel leveraging talent across many different industries and demographics.
This campaign reflects multiple growing trends in marketing:
1) Narrative-driven content (branded entertainment), 2) cross-disciplinary inspiration, and 3) intellectual luxury
For starters, this episodic ad is the PERFECT example of branded entertainment.
Would I watch an ad on a Friday night? No.
Would I watch a 6 part Saint Laurent produced short film? Absolutely.
The slight nuance in labeling completely changes my vantage point as a consumer.
This content also EXUDES intelligence.
Okay fine… I’ll admit it. I’ve never read Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time.
But I feel like I understand the depth of the book from watching these short films.
And by wearing Saint Laurent, maybe I will feel as sophisticated as these videos & this literature.
Plus, the early 1900s cinematic style blends nostalgia with modern edge, perfectly detailing the brand’s ethos.
Using this kind of literature with a modern spin is SO Saint Laurent.
💡 Results 💡
The trailer alone for these short films have gotten 3.5M views on YouTube and counting.
And 3 of the short films have already crossed the 1M mark (!).
The short films have also received press from outlets like Harper’s Bazaar and Dazed.
🎬 Take Action 🎬
Lots to consider here from a branding perspective…
Short Films > Commercials
People probably aren’t sitting down on a Friday night surfing the internet watching commercials (or maybe you are.. and that’s cool too), but they WILL watch a short film.
I love this rebrand to reframe viewing ads as entertainment.
Hedge Your Talent
The cast bridges diverse audiences like Joey King’s Hollywood appeal to Addison Rae’s Gen Z influence, ensuring cultural relevance.
It makes sense to work with a diverse cast to hedge your talent bets when your audience is vast.
Cross-Disciplinary Inspiration
Drawing from literature and film elevates the campaign, especially for a luxury brand.
Where are you looking for inspiration? Could there be ideas in non-traditional places?
What’s New This Week
One new product I tried this week 👉 Nutrops by Grüns are the BEST.
One new campaign I’m loving 👉 Taco Bell’s Photo Booth - such a fan
One new piece of content to listen to 👉 My husband has been listening to Deconstructor of Fun and while I’m not in the gaming industry, it was worth a listen!
Top Industry Jobs
*New this week! Find open brand roles via The Branded Moment. I’ve carefully curated a list of the top brand marketing jobs I’ve seen across the internet.
Senior Brand Manager | Top Skincare & Beauty Company | Summit, NJ
Private Brand Pipeline & Commercialization Manager | 7-Eleven | Irving, TX
Director of Brand Management | That’s It | Los Angeles, CA
Director 360 Degree Brand Marketing OPI | Wella | Calabasas, CA
Director - Marketing, Squishmallows | Jazwares | Culver City, CA
VP, Brand and Creative Marketing | GoodRx | Santa Monica, CA
How do you influence at scale?
Brand marketing is hard enough. Managing each influencer individually is NOT something I’d recommend (and I've tried…)
Popular Pays by Lightricks is the ultimate platform for influencer marketing at scale.
You can choose from a pool of 100k+ creators and get high-performing influencer content for your brand and brief them at once.
Additionally, with SafeCollab (their newest feature), you can ditch the 4-6 hour process of manually vetting influencers and instantly check each creator's content, social history, and cross-platform presence for brand alignment.
Brandkeeping
If you enjoyed this newsletter, please forward it on to 3 marketers you know!
And if you have a brand or campaign you want to spotlight, please reply directly to this newsletter.
Let’s chat!
See ya!
Ali
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