Soylent is a meal replacement shake that carefully selects high-quality ingredients to provide complete nutrition. The company was founded on the principle of reducing trade-offs between nutrition, convenience, taste, and sustainability. Soylent approached us with the goal of creating a video campaign that highlights the full portfolio of nutritional beverage products with a focus on key messaging and value props including plant-based nutrition in a bottle, backed by science, sustained energy, a perfect balance of protein and nutrients, convenience, a solution for a busy lifestyle, delicious, creamy, and good for you and the planet. They wanted the viewers to feel like they make a smart choice when they choose Soylent. In addition to a hero ad, Soylent wanted enough footage to create multiple cutdowns.
On our kick-off call with Soylent, their team mentioned they liked the idea of a “day in the life” concept to highlight how Soylent products can seamlessly fit into a busy person’s day, helping them stay full & fueled. Additionally, Soylent was looking to capture enough footage to create multiple cutdowns for multiple platforms. We took these ideas and ran with it, BIG TIME. Instead of focusing on just one “day in the life,” we chose to highlight ten unique characters, pursuing their ten unique passions in a concept we called, “Lifestyle Variety.”
The “Lifestyle Variety” concept was a one-two punch – it showcased the entire line of Soylent products and the key value props behind the products, while also catering to a large swath of people. Soylent’s customer demographics are wide and varied, so this concept provided an opportunity to speak to that wide range of people who consume Soylent.
We approached the concept as a 360-degree video campaign. Soylent needed a hero ad featuring the entire line of products that could speak to their wide demographic. Though, we were able to pitch a hero concept that also naturally allowed for multiple, engaging, fast-paced-yet-informative, and widely unique cutdowns showcasing a single product and the unique character we paired with it. In total, Soylent received 24 deliverables including the 60-second hero and 30, 15, and 6-second cutdowns edited in multiple aspect ratios for all platforms.
INTERESTING CHALLENGE
Casting the “Lifestyle Variety” concept was wildly fun – we had so many incredible and interesting responses to our casting call. The challenge? Creating ten different scenes within one home location. We were tasked with making one home look like ten different homes so it wasn’t obvious that the entire commercial was shot in one place. So, we had the breakdancer in the garage (this was a June shoot in Texas by the way, so we were all very sweaty by the end of this scene); the mom, the florist, and the podcaster in the kitchen, just in different angles and expertly propped to look unique; the gamer in the TV room … and so on. It was a fun and tricky challenge to say the least, though one we handled with expert lighting, propping, angles, and, of course, incredible talent.
