Hey! We're AMP agency, and we like to do things a little differently. For example, this past year our holidays started in October. Not because we haven't mastered the art of calendar reading, but because we felt our clients deserved a better brand of holiday gift. Something a cut above your average season's greetings. It took a lot of thought, a little elbow grease, and a mild amount of destruction, but in the end, we're extremely proud of the result.
It all began with fruitful brainstorming and a swirl of over sixty ideas. Eventually, we landed on one that felt right – destroying holiday fruitcakes, everyone's least favorite gift.
At its core, our idea centered on using fruitcakes as a catch-all symbol for holiday thoughtlessness. By filming ourselves destroying them, we hoped to humorously convey our very serious commitment to providing decidedly thoughtful work and gifts to our client base. Along with the video, clients received a custom-designed fruitcake tin stuffed with a delicious assortment of holiday treats. For context, the accompanying card included a holiday poem explaining the nature of our gift.
For the tin, microsite and card, we crafted our modern-take on classic holiday fonts, while incorporating our AMP's orange and black brand colors.
Flexibility is King When it Comes to Creating
Initially, we wanted to populate a custom-designed microsite with a series of six to ten second videos, each conveying a different form of destruction, and each involving different members of our office – an AMP fruitcake brigade, if you will. However, as we storyboarded and got set to film, we decided to ditch the employee-focus and hone in on the actual destruction with one cinematic video.
When it came to concepting methods for doing away with fruitcakes, we really got into it – maybe too into it. We tossed around what could be seen in the video: slapping a cake into a meat grinder, flattening a cake with a badass SUV, and breaking one open with a bat. From slingshots to samurai swords, we sorted through it all until we landed on the perfect set of destruction methods.
Web Developers For The Win
With our storyboards drawn, props ordered, and our video department locked-and-loaded, we took to the streets of Boston and filmed all of our fruitcake destruction. In total, it took about two and a half days to film. We not only shot what we had storyboarded, but a multitude of new ideas, angles, and transition shots as they presented themselves.
One pivot in particular really brought this concept to fruition. Even after we shifted from an employee-focused approach to one honing in exclusively on the destruction methodologies, we still needed someone to actually put these things into motion. We asked a member of our web development team, Gabe, to take the role, and he agreed with great enthusiasm.
We wrote the scripts so that he would barely be seen and the burden of acting would be minimized. But after the first day of filming, we realized we had a pretty great actor in our midst, and the video as a whole would be elevated by making him the focus. This was no longer an aesthetically pleasing montage of destruction, but the tale of one man's maniacal quest to deliver AMP's clients the best holiday gift possible.
How It All Came Together
We sought to not only wish our clients a Happy Holiday, but also flex our creative muscles. A custom microsite and a video provided the perfect mediums to showcase many facets of our creative capabilities in quick and engaging formats. Combined with our custom-designed holiday cards and tins, we sent our clients into the holiday season with something to have a laugh at and some tasty treats to enjoy. Getting to destroy fruitcakes along the way was just the icing on the cake.
Please enjoy the fruits of our labor at www.nicetryfruitcake.com and check out our previous holiday cards.
