Every week, Communicate will examine the highlights in film communications and content. For more from #CommunicateLens, follow @Communicatemag

EDF Energy

Building awareness about its network of battery-powered energy and electric cars, EDF Energy has taken to film to educate its audiences about its shift into electric vehicles. Offering infrastructural support as well as electric car leasing plans, EDF Energy is on a mission to make transportation more sustainable. Through its Electric Adventures film series, it is using influencers to address the reservations and fears about electric vehicles and provide information about the electric vehicle network in the UK. The films were produced by Brighton-based production company Be the Fox.

Alongside the release of the films, EDF Energy is unveiling a content and influencer communications strategy that will help it reposition its brand to a younger, non-consumer audience. Tim Corcoran, managing director of agency services at Brilliant Noise, which is running the communications activity, says, “Working with influencers who are already part of customers’ lives should see us getting some great engagement and reaction to this new brand position for EDF Energy. This is a long term investment in engaging with those who aren’t yet customers, as well as a way of shifting perceptions about EDF Energy amongst those who are. The films tackle the things that people are interested in and worried about when it comes to getting their first electric car.”

e.l.f. Cosmetics

Global beauty brand e.l.f. Cosmetics worked with New York-based agency Case on a new brand campaign and positioning for its international audience. Reviving the brand with a new energy, diverse perspective and clearer personality has allowed the brand to fulfils its promise of beauty for every eye, lip and face. The brand repositioning is centred around a series of social media-ready films, created to memorable and provocative. The competitive beauty market meant e.l.f and Case had to work with punchy music, bold brand language and authentic hacks and use cases.

Enoch Palmer, founding partner and creative director at CASE, says, “We knew we had to create a digital campaign that would be ownable, stoppable and memorable and that we needed to be clever about how we activated it through the right influencers.” The brand also wanted to communicate its vegan and cruelty-free credentials alongside its message that its products are for everyone. The videos are designed around the brand’s new manifesto which is composed of key messages, dubbed ‘e.l.f.isms.’ The 170 assets, including film and photography, will be rolled out across the brand’s touchpoints and in the media.

#LoveIsAllWeHave

A multilateral campaign promoting the legalisation of same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland debuted earlier this month. Key stakeholders including current leader of the Liberal Democrats and MP Vince Cable and filmmaker Matt Hyndman have worked together on the campaign, which uses an emotive video to share its message. Shape History, the social change communications agency behind the project has developed the key film to relate the message of same-sex marriage to viewers through a family-based emotional appeal.

The film focuses on a male couple, with one person reading a letter from his mother – heard in voice over – which ends with, “because love is all we have,” the campaign’s key message. Cable says, “One of the big victories in Britain in recent years has been the move to marriage equality. It was a hard fought battle but we got there and it’s made Britain a much better place. We now have to achieve the same results in Northern Ireland.”

Trainline

Tech companies going through IPOs are not rarities anymore, but, presenting a strong case to potential investors to ensure a successful IPO is as challenging as ever. Travel facilitator Trainline worked with Design Portfolio on a communications campaign and corporate website targeting the IPO audience. As a result, the successful IPO on 21 June earned Trainline 350p per share for a total value of £1.68bn.

Part of the communications on the website were focused on a leadership film in which Trainline’s key stakeholders shared information about the business, documenting its successes and its potential for further development and growth. Speakers including CEO Claire Gilmartin shared the 23% growth the company had experienced in the past year, as well as the brand’s expansion from 18m customers to 80m customers in less than 20 years of operation. Making an interactive business case for the success of Trainline’s business, as well as its employees and proprietary technology helped deliver big on the day of the IPO.

Wates Group

Logistics is at the heart of modern warfare. Get it right, and an army or navy may have an advantage over its enemy. That was exactly the case in advance of the D-Day landings, 75 years ago. Wates Group, a British construction company, released a series of images from 1944 that depict the construction of so-called Mulberry harbours. These floating harbours acted as a means to deploy 2.5m soldiers and 500,000 vehicles into Normandy after D-Day.

To commemorate the anniversary of the landings, Wates Group partnered with communications consultancy DRPG to release a film, called ‘Memories of Mulberry’ which interviewed servicemen who used the harbours and historian Guy Walters. James Wates, chairman of the Wates Group, says, “Wates has a proud history as an innovator in construction, and nowhere is this more evident than our involvement with building the Mulberry harbours. I remember my grandfather [Sir Ronald Wates] speaking to me about them when I was a boy, and I know he was so proud of what we were able to do.” The films position Wates as a continuous supporter of the British armed forces as it still works with the Ministry of Defence throughout the latter’s supply chain.

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