By animating a series of still photographs, and without using a single word of dialogue, The Wall Street Journal moves beyond its traditional business focus to become a vibrant "Everything Journal" in a :30 brand image spot entitled, "Live in the Know," from agency McGarry Bowen (NYC) and production/design company The Wilderness.
In aggressively moving beyond its traditional black-and-white, business-only format, The Wall Street Journal's agency asked The Wilderness to produce a spot that embraces its newly expanded editorial focus and use of four-color art throughout, exclusively using still images. Using the masthead the concept was to create a new visual language to present the newspaper as the The 'Blank' Street Journal, in which the reader fills in his favorite "blank" subject matter.
The agency provided The Wilderness with an illustrated brief of The Wall Street Journal's new Live in the Know campaign, which promotes the daily business-paper's expanded editorial focus on lifestyle, travel, food, the complete realm of the executive class," said Juliet Rios, co-founder and partner with Gabe Imlay in The Wilderness.
The spot employs a series of positioning words, including: Cultured, Moving, Opportunity, Enterprising, Real and Gritty, which are set in animated type placed upon a gritty newspaper-print background, integrated into a dozen animated still photographs that play over a bed of music. Without uttering a single word, the fast-paced spot makes the case for The Wall Street Journal's repositioning as - "The Enterprising Street Journal," "The Real Street Journal, "The Local Street Journal," "The Cultured Street Journal," "The Human Street Journal," "The Leisure Street Journal," and "The Gritty Street Journal," among other descriptives.
"McGarry's illustrated brief helped us see how we might use print as a launching point for the spot," said Ms. Rios. "From the outset, we helped them research images as we sought to capture the look of the Bold Street or Main Street Journal. Just how do you that just in a photograph was the challenge?'
In an early meeting with the agency, The Wilderness discussed the use of stills rather than film footage. "It's tricky when you consider using only type and stills," added Ms. Rios. "And, if you are going to use stills, do you use a lot or a few? At that initial meeting, we decided that we weren't going to apologize for using stills but rather would play to their strength and to their relation to the newspaper format, even to selecting a background texture to simulate the look of ink on newsprint."
Using The Wall Street Journal's typeface, The Wilderness design team experimented with ink effects and paper stocks to achieve some verisimilitude to the newspaper. "At the end of the day, both Dow Jones and the agency responded positively to the tactile quality of the newspaper look," said Wilderness partner Gabe Imlay. "They liked the look of the spot, the way it glows and its cinematic feel. But they really responded to the texture of the paper, which we worked hard to translate accurately to video."