CLIENT BRIEF
Brand Collective brings together a diverse portfolio of brands, people and teams working across retail, design, digital, support office and supply chain.
Visual Culture was engaged to develop a culture film that could bring those different parts of the organisation together into one cohesive story.
The objective was to create a film that captured the scale and energy of Brand Collective while remaining firmly focused on its people – presenting the organisation as a dynamic, collaborative and forward-thinking place to work.
The content also needed to work hard across the business. Prospective and existing team members were important audiences, alongside recruitment partners, customers and other stakeholders, with the film designed for use across the Brand Collective website, careers content, LinkedIn, internal communications and recruitment presentations.
Our role began with creative development – finding a way to communicate a large and diverse organisation in a film that felt energetic, authentic and unmistakably Brand Collective.
OUR APPROACH
Rather than relying on traditional interviews or a corporate voiceover, we developed a visually driven approach where the people, workplaces, brands, music and carefully selected on-screen statements would tell the story.
The creative treatment called for a fast-paced, cinematic film that felt warm, modern and people-first. Authentic interaction was important – capturing people working together rather than creating a series of staged corporate scenes.
From the outset, we developed the film around a clear progression.
We would first establish the scale of Brand Collective, then introduce the people behind the brands, move into creativity and product development, connect that work with the retail customer experience, and ultimately bring the different parts of the organisation together around a sense of momentum and shared direction.
Showing Culture Rather Than Explaining It
One of the key creative decisions was not to simply list Brand Collective’s values.
Instead, we looked for ways to show culture through real moments – collaboration between teams, creativity, different roles and backgrounds, pride in the brands, customer connection and the interaction between people across the business.
Filming moved across Brand Collective’s different working environments, including the support office, retail, creative spaces and distribution operations.
That variety was important.
Designers working with product, teams collaborating, retail staff preparing stores and interacting with customers, and activity within the distribution centre all helped build a much broader picture of the organisation than any single location could provide.
Creating Energy Through Production
The visual style was developed to give the film movement and momentum.
Drone establishing shots, moving camera work, wide environmental imagery and detailed product shots helped us move between very different parts of the business while maintaining a consistent visual language.
In post-production, pace became another storytelling tool.
The structure moves between high-energy montages and more measured sections focusing on the team, before bringing the different themes together for the finale. A deliberate pause for a small human moment amongst the faster sequences was also built into the treatment, helping the film retain its people-first character.
Bold typography and graphic treatments inspired by Brand Collective’s existing visual identity provided another connection between the film and the wider brand. The visual treatment developed for the project combined these statements with authentic footage of team members and a mixture of imagery representing the company’s different brands.
OUTCOME
The resulting film brought Brand Collective’s people, brands and working environments together into one cohesive story.
Rather than explaining the organisation through a traditional corporate narrative, the film allows viewers to experience its scale, variety and culture visually – moving from the support office and creative teams through to retail, customer experience and distribution.
Importantly, the project was developed with multiple applications in mind.
The hero film could introduce Brand Collective as a whole, while the production approach also created opportunities for shorter and more targeted content focusing on areas such as retail, support office and distribution centre recruitment.
Alongside other content we have produced for Brand Collective, including video communicating the company’s values, the project demonstrates how brand and culture video can serve audiences both inside and outside an organisation.
For Visual Culture, the project also demonstrates the value of being involved before filming begins.
By developing the creative treatment, story structure and visual approach alongside Brand Collective, we could ensure that every location, team and shot contributed to a bigger idea – not simply showing a collection of brands, but the collective of people behind them.
