Saucony
What is Strong?
What is Strong?
The principals of brand development firm Mechanica, LLC are very proud to announce the launch of their newest campaign for Saucony, Inc., a leading global supplier of performance athletic footwear and apparel. The visually driven "Find Your Strong" campaign conceived by Mechanica founding partner and creative director Libby DeLana, Mechanica creative director Ted Jendrysik and their colleagues features print and online executions, retail and event-marketing components, as well as the brand's first-ever television spot, which was directed by Andre Stringer from U.S. creative production company Shilo. Along with the print the other multi-media elements featuring images from famed sports photographer John Huet, the :60 TV spot debuts tonight on ESPN, and it will continue airing on CBS College, ESPN, ESPN2, Fox Sports, NBC Sports and Versus over the next five weeks. "The Saucony concept of 'Strong' is unique and somewhat intangible," DeLana began. "It's a sense of what the human soul is... it's the runner, but also the environments explored. It's more who you are than what you do. In essence, the struggle is what reveals 'Strong,' and those human experiences are what we set out to distill and showcase in this campaign." "This new campaign continues to amplify our brand mission to inspire runners every day," said Chris Lindner, chief marketing officer for Saucony. "As we confidently emerge as a global athletic brand, we too are finding our 'strong.' Our first national television spot marks a pivotal point for Saucony, signaling a continued expansion of our marketing efforts to further drive brand awareness. Together with our partners at Mechanica, we had extremely high ambitions for every aspect of this significant spot, and the passion and craftsmanship of Andre Stringer and everyone at Shilo has truly exceeded our expectations." As evidenced in his breakthrough work for Guinness, Under Armour and EA Active, Andre Stringer is rapidly emerging as a leading director for powerful visual storytelling capturing authentic performances from world-class athletes and talents. By his own admission, after reading the agency's script for this project, he was hooked. "I instantly saw that our primary challenge for this project was creating an undeniable expression of the simple sentiment, 'What is Strong?' To achieve that," Stringer explained, "I proposed a shooting approach that would allow us to find the embodiment of strong. To get truly real and emotive performances, I believe in pushing athletes -- and every project collaborator -- to their height of performance. In this case, we feel the finished result reflects total dedication from all the talents involved, both on-camera and behind the scenes." Stringer once again teamed up with director of photography Max Goldman for this project. On various locations in California's Marin Headlands, the Saucony, Mechanica and Shilo executives and production crew filmed many of the same premier athletes who appear in the agency's campaign print ads. Footage was captured on Kodak 35mm and 16mm color negative films using two ARRI 235 and one Aaton A Minima camera packages, the Revolution Steadicam and a custom camera car. Footage was transferred and color-graded by Tom Poole of Company 3 in New York. Editorial credit goes to Cassidy Gearhart, and the spot was finished in HD at Shilo's New York studio.
Project Title: Saucony "What is Strong?" :60 Debut Date: 4/27/11 Film Location: Marin County & San Mateo, CA More Info: bit.ly/SauconyStrong Client: Saucony, Inc. Chief Marketing Officer: Chris Lindner Advertising Agency: Mechanica Partner/Creative Director: Libby DeLana Creative Director, Copywriter: Ted Jendrysik Brand Director: Arabella Plum Producer: Mary D. Hanifin Director: Andre Stringer Production Company: Shilo Director of Photography: Max Goldman Editor: Cassidy Gearhart Assistant Editor: Hedia Maron Rotoscopers: Paul Daniel, Djeison Canuto Associate Producer: Sheina Dao Line Producer: Jeremy Yaches Head of Production: Julie Shevach Executive Producer: Tracy Chandler Telecine: Company 3 Colorist: Tom Poole Music Composer/Sound Design: Darrin Wiener Final Mix: Penny Lane Mixer: Joseph Miuccio
