We very recently shot and edited this campaign for client Wheat Thins. In case you’re from foreign as they used to say in England, Wheat Thins are an American snack that is universally loved here in the USA. As the name suggests, it’s a wholesome wheat-based unit of yum.
Wheat Thins’ problem is, if anything, over-familiarity. The reverse of the awareness problem. It’s available everywhere and it’s been around forever. But there is a lot of love for the brand. How do we know this? Because we found it flowing like a torrent on Twitter. While coming up with ideas for Wheat Thins we had the idea of searching Twitter to see what, if anything the Twits were saying about Wheat Thins. We were stunned to find hundreds of unprovoked declarations of undying love for the brand. Some were just slavish “I love Wheat Thins so much i would die for them” . Some were more witty. Some were just odd.
As anyone who tweets regularly knows, the one thing you DON’T expect is for your random tossed-off utterances to have any consequences. That’s the ONE THING you can be certain of. Until now that is!
We selected a random selection of pro-Wheat Thins tweets and slyly tracked down the Tweeters. We then arrived in a van, A TEAM style, and confronted them with their tweets. We thanked them and gave them a gift based on their particular tweet and left basically. Leaving stunned tweeters in our wake. As you can imagine it was enormous fun to shoot. And in case you’re wondering, we usually had the assistance of a facebook friend or otherwise contacted family member to help us set up our marks. I’m always amazed at how easy it is to set up people for pranks. Don’t trust your loved ones!
Among our victims we had a Mom (and wife of a Navy Seal), an air guitar champion (i know, he sounds casted. he wasn’t), a dude in a coffee shop (set up by him mom. hi Beverly!) and a trainee nurse. it was completely random. And no it wasn’t faked. These were actual tweets. That’s what made the whole thing fun: the element of the unknown. The uncontrollable.
We hope you like them as much as we do. Kudos to fearless Wheat Thins clients Jim Low and Beth McMorrow who toughed it out with us in the white video bus that didn’t really have a whole lot of video to be honest. But great A/C! Thank you driver Gary!
Tabitha
and Tim
CREDITS:
AGENCY:
Managing Director: Norm Bilow
Creative Director: Vinny Warren
Creatives: Allan Stevenson/Jimmy Olson
Exec. Producer Kent Kwiatt
Production Co: SMUGGLER
Exec. Producer: Brian Carmody
Director: Renny Maslow
Producer: Shelby Ross
Editorial: Whitehouse Chicago
Editor: Matt Walsh
Asst. Editor: Matt Jameson
Sound: LIME L.A./Sam Casas
Color: New Hat/Bob Fresca
