“I didn't realise how many dumb questions I have”
This week's best videos, made by and for organisations
When Emma Stone was a kid, she was beset by premonitions of terrible things happening to her mum. With therapy, she was able to manage these intrusive thoughts.
Later, as a teenager, she became obsessed with the idea that she should be acting, so much so that she persuaded her parents to move to LA so she could attend auditions.
As she told Fresh Air last week, she came to realise that both these senses came from the same place – that bit in your stomach that drops on a rollercoaster.
She had to learn to differentiate between her good and bad instincts, embracing those that would change her life, while quietening those that threatened to destroy her mental health.
I think people involved in any creative endeavour need to learn to understand their instincts. A strong gut instinct is not always a good gut instinct.
Let’s get amongst it…
The Browser Company redefines product marketing with aplomb (14 mins)
Look, I know. 14 minutes for a product launch video. I felt the same, but I was wrong, and you are too. The Browser Company has always been thrillingly imaginative in the way it tells stories (its Company Values are presented as a long essay about road trips rather than a banal list of words).
This video to launch its new browser starts off predictably – a CEO talking head with a tight script and a boyish charm. It’s fine, and then it unravels into something so much more interesting. It still does a great product marketing job – we learn what the browser does, and why we should care.
But the fun comes from various directions, like background characters suddenly taking centre stage, and a relentless toying with the conventions of these kinds of films that leaves the scaffolding of the whole enterprise there for all to see.
Even when the script nudges into more aspirational territory, it’s quickly grounded again with a silly or funny line that paradoxically makes the more highfalutin stuff land even better.
There’s a lot of good marketing around. This is what great looks like. (Watch on YouTube)
The coolest book ad you’ve ever seen for Dear Black Girls (30s)
Here’s an advert for a book that looks and feels like a Nike ad. It shouldn’t work, but it absolutely does, helped of course by the fact that the author is WNBA star Aja Wilson.
But there’s a lesson here too – about setting high standards for your content, and repurposing tropes that work in other spaces if and when they make sense for you (Watch on Instagram)
Chanel’s game of musical chairs is not what you’re used to (3 mins)
As a father of two young kids, I go to a lot of children’s birthday parties. These events are many things: Chaotic. Overwhelming. Yoghurt-spattered.
One thing they are not is stylish, which is perhaps why I enjoyed this Chanel film so much. It’s party-game-staple musical chairs, but not as we know it, featuring hot people in nice clothes, rather than sugar-crazed toddlers dressed as superheroes.
It’s visually stunning as you’d expect, but there’s also a sense of story that kept me hooked to the end. (Watch on YouTube)
Morning Brew’s clever sci-fi skit lampoons employee wellness benefits (1m 30s)
I’ve waxed lyrical before about Morning Brew’s video output and by George, they’ve done it again. There’s a serious point at the heart of this – about the failure of “employee wellness benefits” to actually create happier workers.
But it’s dealt with in a really fun way, a sci-fi story with equal parts warnings from the future, and chat about glasses. (Watch on TikTok)
Man United’s poignant tribute to the stars lost in the Munich Air Disaster (2 mins)
66 years ago this month, eight brilliant young Manchester United players died in the Munich Air Disaster. This film tells the stories of those young men, to “remember not only the lives we lost, but the lives they lived.”
It’s a simple idea executed flawlessly – short portraits of each player with archive footage that brings them to life as real people, rather than names on a memorial. Beautifully done. (Watch on YouTube)
A happy singalong becomes a stark animal rights message (1m 45s)
NotCo is on a mission to remove animals from food production, and this clever ad challenges the way we think about eating meat. It points out that the animals we see on menus and restaurant signs tend to be cartoonish mascots, grinning in complicity with their own demise.
Through a jaunty song sung by these critters, we realise that meat production is pretty grim, and we shouldn’t kid ourselves using these smiley animals. (Watch on YouTube)
Sky Tennis recreates iconic bouncing balls to launch new channel (1 min)
When Sky Sports wanted to promote its new tennis channel, it could have brainstormed infinite clever ways of communicating the launch. Instead, it took the most famous balls-based ad ever made – Sony’s iconic spot – and recreated it, even using the same track (Heartbeats by José González).
It’s always weird when something you remember as quite recent enters into the realm of a classic that can be homaged, but ignore the quiet dread of ageing to enjoy these bouncing tennis balls. (Watch on YouTube)
Paramount gets silly in its characterful Superbowl spot (2 mins)
I’m always worried that us Brits talking about the Superbowl is teeth-clenchingly awkward – “Cor, I sure hope the Chiefs score a massive touchdown!” But we can’t ignore it as a huge video moment, and we’re already seeing various spots in the week before the Big Match-Up (sorry).
This is joyfully unhinged from Paramount Plus, as a group of characters from the platform’s biggest shows discuss whether to throw Arnold (as in Hey…) up a cliff. There’s lots to enjoy here, not least Sir Patrick Stewart railing at Drew Barrymore for being eminently sensible. (Watch on LinkedIn)
Adidas warms up for the Superbowl with a little help from Queen (45s)
And some more Superbowl fun from Adidas, featuring Kansas City Quarterback Patrick Mahomes, the Las Vegas Sphere (which I’m sure we’ll be seeing lots of given that it’s the host city) and the always-welcome Under Pressure by Queen.
“It’s only a game of catch” is a neat undercutting of all the Superbowl hoopla. (Watch on Instagram)
“Don’t make content strategy such a big deal. I mean don’t get so buried in and focused on creating an airtight strategy that you get frozen and stop publishing content.”