A CASE STUDY of how St. Germain's daring live-stream campaign transformed a classic liqueur into a millennial sensation.
Years ago, the French liqueur company, St. Germain, launched an ambitious campaign to rebrand their flagship elderflower liqueur and make it more appealing to millennials. Historically associated with an older demographic, St. Germain aimed to refresh its image and make the product “cool” again.
Instead of opting for traditional 30-second TV commercials, they decided to embrace social media, choosing a then brand new live video-sharing platform called Periscope.
If you remember, Periscope allowed users to live stream video clips to their audience, who could react in real-time. These videos could be viewed for up to 24 hours before disappearing into the ether (Periscope was later acquired by Twitter and discontinued in 2021).
At the time, Periscope was all the rage, and St. Germain capitalized on its popularity by launching a bold, somewhat clandestine campaign. The challenge was that the spots had to be filmed live, with no option for post-production editing. Everything had to be perfect as it streamed live to viewers.
They produced a total of six live spots, each shot and broadcast every hour on the hour. And to top it off, they had to film each one on an iPhone 6 to ensure the live streaming worked seamlessly.
Here’s how the concept was pitched to me for storyboarding:
“Imagine you’re a voyeur peering through a peephole as a glamorous woman (played by model Hannah Simone) moves about her upscale French apartment in her finest lingerie, completely unaware she’s being watched.”
So, let me get this straight—you want me to draw a stunningly beautiful woman strutting around in her apartment, half-naked?
Uh, sign me up!
Honestly, it didn’t take much convincing. Actually, none at all.
The cherry on top was that I’d be working with the visionary director/photographer Floria Sigismondi, someone whose work I’ve long admired. Unfortunately, I never got to speak with her directly, but this campaign was entirely her vision.
To get me started, the producer sent over a folder of reference images for me to use which also included several renderings of the “Boudoir” (translates to a woman’s private room). In addition, I also received a shot list as well as the Director’s treatment created by Floria which helped me to get a feel for the look and vibe they were after.
One unusual “aspect” of this job (pun intended) was the aspect ratio of the frames I’d be drawing. Typically, TV frames are wider than they are tall, but since the intended audience would be watching on their smartphones, the panels had to be rotated to a taller-than-wide format. Instead of my usual 16:9 frames, I was working in 9:16, which took some getting used to.
I never used Periscope, so I missed the campaign going live, but I found the video below so you’re not left in the dark wondering how the final product turned out.
Overall, it was a really fun and successful campaign to work on, mainly because it was so different and groundbreaking (and, of course, drawing beautiful women didn’t hurt). In the nearly nine years since, I’ve never worked on anything quite like it.