Samsonite Red—Carry On Brand Film
Carry your best self forward
Project brief—
Samsonite is widely known for its quality luggage.
But it also produces sleek, well-crafted backpacks to carry your everyday essentials.
In a time of high competition and long hours in the workplace, you need a bag that can carry you through too.
My team and I worked to deliver this brand film, featuring Korean actor Cha Eunwoo.
Key skills: script writing, translation, storyboards, campaign development, recording with voice actors
Project result—
This was an interesting project for me. It was my first brand film, and it involved a lot of work I hadn’t done before. In particular, storyboarding and working with voice actors in a studio.
Whilst I can’t say I enjoyed pumping out storyboards—my drawing skills aren’t the best—I did love the challenge of putting all these new skills to the test. The task required us to conceptualise a brand idea that fit within Samsonite Red’s broader messaging at the time; youth focussed, the tough economy, and the competitive nature of working life in Asia.
‘Carry On’ was a tag they’d already been using and they wished to utilise it further in this film. I put pencil to paper.
Original Ideation—
Initially, I’d centred on an idea of bags representing one’s self—much like a bookshelf. Their contents perfectly capture who you are at any given moment. Leveraging this, I wished to remove the people and elevate the bags as the main protagonists. Only at the end would we cut to their owners, and close on a copy emphasising something along the lines of “No matter where you’re at in life, at least your bag carries YOU through it”.
I was also reminded of the so-called ‘lipstick index’ that demonstrates how consumption of cosmetics increases in tough economic times. Perhaps too, investing in a well-crafted bag could offer the same reward.
The Chosen Direction—
In the end, the idea of challenging existing norms, people’s opinions, and roadblocks in one’s path was chosen. This is a common notion or campaign message at the moment, particularly in the largely collectivist culture of Korea. And it works well with a target demographic looking to break free of society’s pressures.
In coordination with the Korean team, I developed the English script to sync the campaign in both languages. I found this to be a challenge, namely due to the fact languages don’t neatly overlap. However, the final result turned out a success, and filming was then conducted in NYC with leading Korean actor, Cha Eunwoo.
The Final Stretch—
Probably my favourite part of this whole project was working in the studio to record the narration. Having little to no experience in this at the time, I was shocked and perhaps a little dismayed when my copy suddenly sounded totally different. I hadn’t realised, but words flow different in my mind due to something called intonation! Working through this, adjusting in real time, and working in tandem with the actors to nail the tone and meaning was thoroughly enjoyable!
A rewarding project all round. See the finished film below.
Project learnings—
How my copy sounds in my head is different to when someone else speaks it aloud! Hello, voice actors!
I LOVE recording in a studio. Playing around with intonation, accents, and editing on the fly is exciting.
Changing a script to ‘better fit’ another language is frustrating—language has nuance and trying to align two removes the charm of both.