Today’s culture is largely built around empty celebrity, and the women who dominate headlines are celebrated for their looks and ostentatious lifestyles. Stories of substance are lost in a sea of superficial noise.
As such, women today lament a severe lack of female role models.
With that in mind, we decided to launch a first-of-its-kind Women’s Campaign, Inspiring Stories, celebrating women of substance who are making a positive impact in the world.
Rolex, a brand symbolizing aspiration and achievement, chose eight incredible women as the subjects of the campaign. These women are trailblazers, legends, and champions. All extraordinary. All inspiring.
All who embody Rolex’s core values: dedication. Innovation. Perseverance. Excellence.
We teamed up with Hearst to offer campaign content on ELLE.com in 13 markets and 11 different languages simultaneously. The content included feature-length articles, image galleries, video and social media, across both print and digital platforms.
In its first months, the program generated millions of global media impressions, social engagement, and views.
To support the "Born to Dare" campaign launched in 2017, we decided to follow up with a content series for each brand ambassador. Called the "Daring Stories," this content series features each ambassador talking about objects that played an important role in their life or career.
The first series, featuring David Beckham, will be launch in summer 2018 and will be followed by new episode featuring Lady Gaga and players of the All Black rugby New Zealand team.
Last year, Rolex demonstrated how the iconic watch brand has always been a part of cinema history (see Rolex - Oscars 2017). This year, Rolex celebrates those who dedicated their life to creating iconic film.
Due to the incredibly short timing and the high expectations of the directors featured in the TVC, this project was probably the most difficult film I have ever produced.
Even if the directors approved the concept well in advance, I had to be incredibly flexible; concepts were often changing due to director’s geographical availabilities, which would change drastically from week to week - a chaotic NYC riot became a calming middle eastern desert scene and an underwater shoot blew up into a full CGI world. I worked closely with the directors to design the best scenario for each of them dependent on the location of the shoot. I sometimes didn’t know what we were shooting a week in advance due to this.
During each shoot day, besides the TVC filming, we also had to shoot multiple print scenarios as well as content videos.
It was really difficult but really rewarding. It was an honor to work so closely with such incredibly talented people.
