(lab_report / Spirits)
A six-figure production, run out of a 400-square-foot studio.
Absolut
·
Spirits
·
2019
(the_challenge)
The Challenge
In August 2019, Ford Media Lab produced a three-day, full-scale content shoot for Absolut, Pernod Ricard’s flagship vodka and one of the best-known spirits on earth. A $110K+ production, run out of a 400-square-foot studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, by a team that had spent the prior five years inside the industry, in brand-ambassador and trade-marketing roles for major houses, after years behind the bar before that.
The brief was always-on. One engagement, a full calendar year of occasion-led content, from awards season to the holidays, engineered so a single stylized scene threw off an entire library: stills, GIFs, multiple frames, and copy-ready variations across social, e-commerce, programmatic, and email.
(the_approach)
The Approach
We designed the system, then built it. Location scouting, casting, props, wardrobe, food styling, set construction, and capture across studio and a Manhattan rooftop. Full production, every element ours.
This was years before the AI era. The work that now takes a fraction of the time was done the long way, on a rooftop in the West Village and in a Brooklyn studio with an annex for wardrobe and a monitor rigged in the conference room for live viewing. It is the receipt behind everything the studio claims about scale now. We could produce at the level of a major agency because we already had.
(lab_report / results)
The Results
Absolut led to more. A second production followed, and the engagement opened a multi-year run of Pernod Ricard work across the portfolio. The first six-figure shoot was the proof, for the client and for us, that two people who came up through the trade could run production at any scale a global brand required.
(the_work)
The Work
(protocols_deployed)
Protocols Deployed
Product Photography
Video & Motion
Social & Content Systems