“The IVCA Awards are internationally recognised as setting the benchmark for corporate communications. The standard of entries to this year’s Awards was exceptionally high. In winning the Bronze Award for Online Sales and Promotion TDF Productions’ films for Lush were evocative, fun and compelling. They led the online and off-line integrated campaign by Lush. The three short films are well constructed and wonderfully creative meeting not just the demands of this campaign but acting to reinforce and enhance Lush’s brand values and identity.”
- Marco Forgione, IVCA Chief Executive
“The judges were impressed that such a small creative and technical team achieved such a high standard.”
- IVCA Judges
LUSH TOWN: EPISODE THREE
In March of 2008 TDF Films (at that point called TDF Productions) were contracted to produce a series of short films and accompanying materials that form the centerpiece in the relaunch of the ‘Retro Lush’ brand of Lush cosmetics. Handling all aspects of the episodic 4-minute films (and their accompanying 40-second trailers) from writing and conception through to delivery, ‘Lush Town: Episode One’ went live on the UK Lush website on 12th April, 2008, and proving a great success, was subsequently launched on the North American Lush website on 16th June, 2008, with European and dubbed Japanese launches in 2009. In March 2009 the campaign was awarded a prestigious IVCA Award for Online Sales and Promotions.
‘Lush Town’ was an innovative and experimental advertising campaign for Lush Cosmetics Ltd that aimed to not only promote Lush’s products, but to create an entire fictional world through them, with both an entertaining and engrossing storyline, and a competition challenge for Lush’s large dedicated fanbase.
The primary purpose of ‘Lush Town’ was to promote the re-launch of the ‘Retro Lush’ range – a popular service whereby Lush would bring back previously discontinued ranges to be available to order online. So, over three episodes of specially created dramas, the film-noir storyline of ‘Lush Town’ tells a tale of mystery and intrigue, where Detective Retro must find out why the characters (products) that populate Lush Town keep disappearing (being discontinued)…
LUSH TOWN: EPISODE ONE
LUSH TOWN: EPISODE TWO
The three webisodes of ‘Lush Town’ do not feature products directly – rather they provide a competition whereby the names of the products are either personified as the story’s characters, or layered into the film’s dialogue, or interpreted as props in the film. In the world of ‘Lush Town’ a product such as ‘Honey Waffle’ could be the name of a femme fatale… A painting on the wall could show a ‘Fox In The Flowers’ (another product), or ‘A Crash Course In Skincare’ (the name of a Lush gift set) could be snarled as a threat! The online viewers then had to try to spot as many references as they could in order to win prizes – a real challenge, as each episode featured between 60 and 100 product names!
The release of each episode extended to Lush stores across the country, with each film being accompanied by in-store tie-in competitions, window displays (including entire soap cityscapes to mimic those in the film), staff dressing up as characters, and so on.
‘Lush Town: Episode Three’ was still more ambitious - a seven-minute conclusion to the story, featuring a large range of sets and locations, a newly composed musical number (‘Dreamland’), a blend of black-and-white and colour sequences, CGI and compositing effects and a David Lynch-inspired dream sequence. The films were concluded with a newly composed musical overture running over the final credits.
TDF Films (then called TDF Productions) also created a 50’s movie-stye poster for the release, which was hand-painted by Lisette Lawrie, and two ‘making of’ documentaries, which can be found at www.lushtown.com or by clicking the links below.
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL:
‘Lush Town’ was made by a very small and dedicated team on an extremely small budget. For example, ‘Lush Town Episode One’ had just five crew members. Each episode in the campaign was made for between £7000 and £14,000 (approx $11,000-$22,000).
The core team on the ‘Lush Town’ films consisted of just two people; Henry Dalton, acting as Writer, Director, Producer, and Editor; and Lisette Lawrie, acting as Production Designer, DOP, Lighting and Camera.
As well as grander set design and more characters, ‘Lush Town: Episode Two’ also featured a specially-composed song, also written by Henry Dalton for the film - ‘The Bubbles Have Gone’. Again, this musical number incorporated over 14 product references in its lyrics.
As well as the films, TDF Films produced two live stage versions of the ‘Lush Town’ story, which were performed to great reception at the Lush International Press Launch in London (August 2008) and the Lush UK Managers Meeting in Poole, UK (September 2008). These performances, which all used the original cast, included new scenes written for the stage, and live performances of ‘The Bubbles Have Gone’ from Episode Two and a selection of other songs.
