Project:
Marketing campaign for the premiere of Lee Ann Womack’s “Hollywood” video
Role:
Creative Lead
Responsible for Concept, Art Direction, Social Media, and Digital Design for the premiere/marketing campaign
Brief:
Lee Ann Womack had worked with the amazingly talented Chris Ullens and Jade and Chris Productions to create a stop-motion music video for her new song “Hollywood.” The video features a barbie-like “Lee Ann” doll and her “partner” experiencing real heartache in a plastic world. Lee Ann’s team approached me to conceptualize and develop an unconventional marketing campaign for the premiere of this unique video.
Process:
When I first saw this video, I was struck by the emotional response I had; likely emphasized by the juxtaposition of stop motion dolls and the gut-wrenching song. Lee Ann is known for her sad songs, but this video was such a fun departure from every other video she had done before. She has a very loyal fan base due to her impressive career filled with many number ones, grammy awards, and endless critical acclaim. Her fans would never expect a video like this, so I felt it would be interesting to play with their expectations leading up to its release. Because this was primarily a digital campaign, we also needed to create multiple impressions beyond the day of the premiere.
To do this, I created faux movie posters, to be released the days prior to the premiere, that were intended to peaked the curiosity of the fans by utilizing imagery that left them with more questions than answers. More specifically, I pulled stills from the video of scenes in the film that vaguely looked like real life despite the fact that it wasn’t. Whether the perspective was from the back of the dolls head or an empty (mini) hotel room, these images left you wanting to know more, and you were in for a real surprise once “more” was revealed. To further add intrigue, I asked her team to solicit random, yet funny, critic “quotes” from fellow artists, to further confuse the fans as to what to expect from the video. We gathered quotes from Willie Nelson, Brother’s Osborne, Reba McEntire, Lee Ann (herself), and others.
All photos used in the campaign are stills from the official Hollywood stop motion video.
Result:
The faux movie poster campaign (complete with faux film festivals logos) include 4 posters leading up to the release and a final poster for the reveal on premiere day. Given the playful nature of the movie posters (and the brilliance of the music video by Chris Ullens), many other well-known artists joined in and added their own quotes in the comments sections on the digital posts. Due to the success, and to get more life out of the campaign, we released a follow up movie poster with some of these additional artist quotes.
Discover
In addition to this marketing campaign, I have done a variety of print, digital, marketing, and merchandising projects for Lee Ann Womack over the last 15 years, as well as served as her day-to-day manager for over 5 years. To see some of this work, click here
Watch Lee Ann Womack’s “Hollywood” Video>>
To view the credits for the making of the video, please see youtube comments
To listen to The Lonely, The Lonesome, and the Gone (the album this song appears) click here::
