H&M: Modern Essentials By Beckham

Credits & Description:

Agency: Adam&eveddb London, United Kingdom
Client: H&M
Product: H&M
Entrant: Adam&Eveddb London, United Kingdom
Title: Modern Essentials By Beckham
Product/Service: H&M
Idea Creation: Adam&Eveddb London, United Kingdom
Production: Sonny London, United Kingdom
Additional Company: Mpc Ccreative London, United Kingdom
Additional Company 2: Marshall Street Editors London, United Kingdom
Additional Company 3: Factory London, United Kingdom
Chief Creative Officer: Ben Priest (adam&eveDDB)
Executive Creative Director: Ben Tollett (adam&eveDDB)
Executive Creative Director: Richard Brim (adam&eveDDB)
Creative Director: Patrick McClelland (adam&eveDDB)
Managing Director: Tammy Einav (adam&eveDDB)
Account Director: James Rowe (adam&eveDDB)
Creative Director: Erik Zetterberg (H&M)
Head of Marketing: Daniel Herrmann (H&M)
Project Manager: Fia Ingman (H&M)
Agency Producer: Jack Bayley (adam&eveDDB)
Director: Fredrik Bond (Sonny London)
Producer: Alicia Richards (Sonny London)
Editor: Tim Thornton-Allan (Marshall Street Editors)
Assistant Editor: Matthew Pochettino (Marshall Street Editors)
Sound Designer: Anthony Moore (Factory Studios)
Post Producer: Abi Klimaszewska
 (Glassworks)
Creative Director: Feargal Ballance (adam&eveDDB)
Sound Composer: Bill Martin, Phil Coulter (Freelance)
Project Lead 2D: Duncan Malcolm (Glassworks)
Project Lead 3D: Jordi Bares (Glassworks)
2D Artists: Mark Holman-Harris, Alex Pattinson, Tiago Barbosa, Leanne Pletersky, Duncan Horn (Glassworks)
3D Artist
: Davide Uccellani, Andy Nicholas, Jamie Barty, Omar Sarmiento
 (Glassworks)
Colourist: Daniel De Vue (Glassworks)
Assistant Agency Producer: Jimena Seoane (adam&eveDDB)
VFX Supervisor, Project Lead: Jonathan Westley (MPC)
Post Producer: Justin Stiebel (MPC)
The Campaign
Given the interest and buzz that the first film and campaign generated we decided that we would continue the story where we left the first film, creating a second episode as a follow-up to the successful first.
The format challenged the well-worn semiotics of fashion advertising, and tapped into the insight that our audience is influenced more by long form content and programming than traditional ‘advertising’. Indeed, the very fact that we were creating episodes stood in opposition to the norms of the category, that traditionally created singular, isolated 30” spots to sell an idea, or line of clothing.
The second episode in the Modern Essentials series would follow directly on from the first, creating an episodic narrative that built from the original concept.
In this episode, following the apparent success of I, Beckham: The Movie, we pick up the story with Kevin and an unwilling David on the road,
Creative Execution
The two-part ‘mocumentary’ series ,shot by world-renowned director Fredrik Bond, launched in 2015 with the first episode.
We created a 30” trailer for the content, which broke online and on TV in 10 key markets, pushing consumers to watch the full 7 minute film online, available globally.
The first episode shows David hosting Kevin Hart, who is spending time with David to research the title role in “I, Beckham”, the movie. The genre is one that David isn’t known for and as a result shows a side of Beckham that the world rarely gets to see.
We followed this up with the second episode which followed directly on from the first, where, following the apparent success of I, Beckham: The Movie, we see Kevin and an unwilling David on the road, travelling from LA to Las Vegas to pitch Kevin’s latest idea: I, Beckham, The Musical.
The first episode was hugely successful.
The 7-minute film was viewed over 20M times. A sign of the likeability of the content was demonstrated by the fact that 6.1M views were organic – viewers deliberately searching out the content. Not only that but 75% of the viewers watched the content to completion.
Viewers on YouTube shared the video onto other platforms 16,400 times (x10 more than the previous H&M campaign). It is the most liked, the most favourited, the most shared and video with the highest view time of all H&M videos on YouTube.?The video also has a 27 % points more male viewers than the H&M average.
Not only this, but the film was picked up by key news organizations and media outlets: Complex, E! and Hollywood reporter among other more fashion focused publications such as GQ, Harpers Bazaar US, Elle UK and InStyle.
Results from 2nd TBC
H&M challenged us to generate interest and buzz around the Modern Essentials Collection (released at every autumn/winter) selected by David Beckham. We needed to show an unexpected side of David that would make our global male audience (18-30) sit up and take notice.
We created a campaign opposition to the well-worn semiotics of fashion advertising, and tapped into the insight that our audience is influenced more by long form content and programming than traditional ‘advertising’. We created a two-part ‘mocumentary’ series featuring David Beckham and US comedian Kevin Hart.
Our target were global males aged 18-30, a group that are traditionally hard to reach using traditional above-the-line media. Indeed, we knew that this group were leading the increases in online video consumption which had grown by 23% YoY in 2015 (http://www.zenithoptimedia.com/mobile-drive-19-8-increase-online-video-consumption-2016/).
We also knew from viewing figures that our audience were favouring longer form content and particularly episodic content that built towards a singular narrative (http://fortune.com/2016/03/11/netflix-changing-game-network-tv/).
Finally, we learnt from our first film in 2015, that our audience responded positively to our format and narrative (20M+ views, 75% view-through rate, leading to the collection selling out online in 24 hours), by creating something that they genuinely wanted to watch.
So we knew that a two-part series that followed Kevin and David’s relationship from first meet – to an inevitably disastrous road trip to sell ‘I, Beckham – The Musical’ to producers in Las Vegas, was a winning formula.