Accomplice Media directing team Sherpas Cinema collaborated with The Richards Group and Jeep on a new campaign launching the 2015 Jeep Renegade across North America.
For the campaign’s 60-second launch spot, Sherpas Cinemas’ Eric Crosland captured the epic adventure of a band traveling America in search of musical stardom. Featuring Brooklyn indie rockers X Ambassadors and their original song Renegades, the spot debuted on the iHeartRadio Music Awards show.
A second spot, titled Renegades, is a visually innovative mosaic centering on modern day rebels. Additional spots focus on an endurance race, technology and a giant MySky open-air roof system, with all of the spots built around the catchy X Ambassadors song. A full-length music video was also shot and edited for the song and has just been added to the Jeep YouTube channel. The campaign includes print, radio, experiential, digital, social and website elements, as well as concerts and other live events.
The campaign targets younger car buyers, driven by a spirit of adventure. “We wanted to delve into the mindset of a particular segment of millennials in a way that is authentic and credible,” explains The Richards Group Executive Producer Paul Nelson. “The Sherpas team was perfect to shoot this because they belong to that target market. We thought they could bring something special to the table.”
Acclaimed for their ability to capture action sports and big visuals, Sherpas Cinema demonstrates their skill as storytellers and lifestyle performances in crafting a charismatic portrait of the band. “We show the daily grind of a band trying to make it in a very tough business,” Crosland says. “We follow them on tour. We see them playing a smaller venue, then a larger club and finally arriving at a concert hall where their name is on the marquee.”
Crosland shot the campaign over six days in Portland and San Diego, working to capture a variety of people, events and locations in an intimate and natural manner. “We were looking for real, lifestyle moments and wanted to be light and agile enough to take advantage of them,” he explains. “We took risks and looked for unique moments that you might not normally think of filming.”
“The people from Jeep, FCA and The Richards Group were great creative partners,” Crosland adds. “They had strong ideas and knew the demographic they wanted to hit. We worked closely across the board.”
Highlights of the production included filming the band playing outdoors on a helipad before a crowd of enthusiastic fans. Images of the Jeep Renegade, a vehicle synonymous with the spirit of adventure, are organically woven through all of the spots.
Nelson notes that expanding the band’s road trip into a full length music video wasn’t part of the original plan. “But we had so much great footage,” he says. “Eric and his crew were able to do a lot of cool things in camera with unusual lenses and other tricks that gave the music video a nice vibe.”
Consumer response has been enthusiastic. “These are not typical commercials,” Nelson says. “We wanted to do something that was different from and more visually interesting than other car advertising. Eric and his team were a big part of our success in achieving that.”
