Creative Director's Choice: Grow's Drew Ungvarsky on the Academic's innovative Facebook Live music video
Creative Director’s Choice gives creative directors a chance to highlight the current work they think is the best out in the ad world – the ads and campaigns they believe are making a difference.
The Academic's Facebook Live video for the song Bear Claws
This week, Drew Ungvarsky, chief executive officer and executive creative director at digital agency Grow, states why the Facebook Live music video by the Academic for the song ‘Bear Claws’ is an innovative, modern use of the platform.
One of my favorite pieces of creative from 2017 was the Academic’s Facebook Live music video for ‘Bear Claws.’ They took advantage of the delay in Facebook live video streaming, and along with some simple projection, created an incredible music video with looping audio and visual layers.
There’s a lot to love about the work, not least of which using a technology available to everyone, but making it stand out with some creative thinking. What other musicians might have seen as a technical flaw in the platform, they made an asset.
The art direction is also simple and smart. Colored lights illuminate the foreground and change as each new loop is added to the mix. The projected Facebook Live stream creates an inception effect, and the changing colors literally illuminate the video loops and the depth of the audio composition. Even better, since fans could react to the live stream, their cascading likes and hearts became part of the building energy of the piece and completed the effect.
The execution looks simple but was no doubt challenging to execute perfectly, and since it was done live, they had to pull it off without a safety net.
Simple, smart, and mesmerizing to watch. And a catchy track, too. The indie band from Ireland racked up nearly two million views of their unique concept and made their way onto playlists around the world — mine included.
Drew Ungvarsky is chief executive officer and executive creative director at Norfolk, Virginia digital agency Grow.
To view the video, click on the Creative Works box below.
To see the latest creative ads and campaigns, visit The Drum’s Creative Works section. If you or your creative director would like to feature in our Creative Director’s Choice, please contact Kyle O’Brien at kyle.obrien@thedrum.com.
