Wednesday 23 July 2014

St Luke’s productions take a bow

We’ve tended to keep it a little bit on the down-low before, but we’ve got a rather talented director/editor in our midst at St Luke’s (he goes by the name of Si Allen) who heads up St Luke’s Productions, our in-house production company.

Previous St Luke’s productions have included work for Strongbow, Majestic and Mooncup, as well as music videos for Paloma Faith, and a start-up t-shirt brand Blackmail. However, the latest brief to come through the door was something altogether different…

Knopka is a Russian business service, which is unique not only to Russia and the UK, but to the world, as it’s the first business service to combine accountancy, legal support and admin support online, providing an all-round offering which is invaluable to start-ups and entrepreneurs.

We worked with Michael Wolff and NB studios on the branding and design for Knopka, and then developed the creative concept for the online films, which are designed to demonstrate Knopka’s understanding of the unique mindset of an entrepreneur.



Each spot features a ‘spectral’ girl who arrives mysteriously and talks to individual entrepreneurs. The little girl is fantastic, and a bit creepy in all honesty…In one spot she suddenly appears in an office late at night and says, “you work too hard, you must have a horrible boss” while she stares him out. The entrepreneur replies, “I am the boss”, before the girl disappears again.

This was all shot on location, which also conjured up some interesting stories. The original location for the car park film (image above) was Chetanova, and when the team asked for the English translation were told it’s “where the devil sleeps.” Maybe that was a lucky escape!

The films will run online - targeted at Moscow based entrepreneurs - from July but make sure you check them out online at let us know what you think @stlukescomms.

Thursday 3 July 2014

ST LUKE’S BRINGS YOU CREDENTIALS, THE STRONGBOW WAY

One Facebook user recently commented, “what has this got to do with Strongbow?” after seeing a picture of an apple on the Strongbow fan page.   Well, Gareth Jones* from Dorset, there are, in fact, over a billion British apples used in the production of Strongbow every year. It’s this insight which is at the core of Strongbow’s latest ad, Bittersweet. This 40” spot works to remind consumers about all of the hard work which the farmers of Herefordshire put into growing their apples. 


 It is the unique bittersweet flavor of these apples which gives Strongbow it’s crisp, sharp and refreshing taste. This divided palette has given inspiration to the art direction of the ad, as through-out the majority of the advert we see both the bitter and sweet side of the British apple farming process. We see the hard working farmer fight through the cold, wet and snow one side of the screen, while on the other side the same farmer is seen striding around his sun bathed farm as we follow the apple’s journey from the tree into the glass.


This was a particularly exciting project for St Luke’s as it allowed us to get to the roots of Strongbow’s business and heritage  as well as utilise ground breaking cinematography. It is the use of the never seen before 3D technique along with soundtrack which makes this ad so distinctive and memorable. Watch the ad here.


*not his real name