Breakbot Toys Around with Pages Jaunes

Some artists can be quite reluctant about working in advertising, mainly because they fear having to sacrifice their creative ideas and lose control over the production process. However, when French DJs, Breakbot - made up of Thibaut Berland and Irfane - were offered the opportunity to partner with Pages Jaunes and create an interactive music video while retaining full creative control, they jumped at the chance.

Although the main job involved filming the music video (below), Breakbot also starred in some behind-the-scenes clips with professionals recruited from the directory who worked on set.

Both aspects have been intergrated into a fully interactive online experience - available in French here - where viewers can stop and start the video to see what was going on backstage. shots caught up with everyone involved to find out how the artists and ad creatives saw eye to eye.

The Branded Content/Pages Jaunes project

Client: Gérard Lenepveu, brand and advertising director

Why did Pages Jaunes decide to veer away from a traditional TVC and create a campaign on a digital platform?

We need to modernise and change people’s perception of our brand. We already exist online so the campaign is about making people actively think of us. When you think of Pages Jaunes, you think of your parents using it. We wanted people to discover our brand, explain what we do and make it cool to use. It’s a piece of branded content that promotes the professionals that we work with, which is why we put real professionals at the forefront of the campaign. Although they’re helping with the campaign, they’re actually just doing their job.

Sid Lee ECD: Sylvian Thirache

What was the brief that you received from Pages Jaunes?

We were told that the biggest problem they had was their image. They have a lot of people subscribing and using the service but people don't think of them as 'cool'. Which is why we proposed an interactive campaign away from the traditional TVC model. That way, the content is more shareable and can be accessed by younger audiences.

Sid Lee CDs: Céline (CML) and Clément Mornet Landa (CLML)

What was your role in the project?

CML: We decided to highlight the Pages Jaunes professionals in a new way and put the small businesses in front of the big screen. We wanted to show how these professionals work by using their services in the music video and talking with them on the job. Pages Jeunes was happy for this to be a digital project as it wanted to update its image and point younger audiences to its services.

How did you oversee all aspects of the project and manage to keep everybody happy?

CLML: We all had the same objective. Nobody had to sacrifice their creative freedom. There’s no logos in the music video. Pages Jaunes was very happy to put the professionals ahead of the brand, which is very rare. It’s a big move away from the traditional approach to advertising.

Sid Lee production director: Thomas Laget

Why did you decide to use Dimitri for the BTS part of the project?

We contacted Dimitri because he's known for creating music and skateboarding documentaries. He’s good at bringing emotion to the lens and at capturing naturally funny moments. Plus he’s good friends with Breakbot.

What were some of the biggest challenges of working on this sort of project?

Shoot days were double the length of a normal day... but it was worth it.

Director: Dimitri Pailhe

You’ve done a lot of documentary/journalistic work in the past. How did you adapt your approach to suit this project?

I wanted to record real interactions between the Pages Jaunes professionals and Breakbot. With documentaries, it’s all about catching the right moment. For my job, I need to have a 360-eye and always know what’s going on everywhere. The job requires a lot of focus and flexibility. I’m the middle man that interacts with everybody so quite often I’m judging whether to give order or to say a joke to relax people. On this project, we always tried to laugh.

What did you want to capture?

Stolen moments. I like accidents – the bits that you won’t see in the actual video. Like if one of the dancers misses a step and starts to laugh. I’m always waiting. I put mics on everybody so I can listen to what they say and run over if I think they’re doing something cool. Luckily, on this job we had four stages in the same area so it was easy to run back and forth.

The music video:

Director: AB/CD/CD

What was the inspiration behind the music video?

After listening to the lyrics, we decided that it’s a song about girls wanting to build the perfect man. Our main inspiration was the 70s – simple storylines with strong characters which we’ve adapted into a surreal and futuristic world. We’re telling the story of a robot discovering the power of women. We were influenced by Beyoncé’s Single Ladies song, which is really powerful, sensual, even sexual. We also knew we wanted lots of colours and for the backdrop to be very illustrative as it had to fit Breakbot’s world.

Who are the characters? Some of the female roles seem quite cliché…

We tried to reverse the stereotype a bit. The women are in control of the man as they created him; he’s just a toy to them. It’s a small tale about a non-traditional romance, where the women are punchy and the guy is weak. But we wanted it to empower women to do stuff for themselves. And dance is a great way to tell this story. We’re not used to working with choreography but it fit perfectly. We saw it as a cross between Fantasia and Beyoncé... Breakbot really likes Disney and he really likes Beyoncé.

Music video or ad?

We love music and musicians. Often music video briefs are quite open - every artist we've worked with has really trusted our vision and just let us get on with it, which we love. Commercials can also be good depending on the script. But it’s not as much your own idea, so, in a way, you’re less responsible for the outcome of it.

Breakbot (IR)& TH) & Pedro Winter (PW) from Ed Banger Records

How do you feel the music video visually represents you?

IR: You can give an image to an album through sound, but it’s cool when the visual identity matches the song. We prefer it when each video is unique as it becomes the director’s interpretation of our music.

Did you have to compromise at all to work with the brand?

IR: Outside of the music video, yes, but it meant we could do really cool things in the video, like using this amazing set. Pedro tailored it well so that everyone got what they wanted out of it.

TH: We had the freedom to do whatever we wanted in the music video without having to feature any branding or logos. And then we worked on the BTS part for Pages Jaunes separately. It was ambitious for a brand to approach us like this.

PW: We’ve got to find new ways to finance our artistic projects and they’ve found a way to create a branded content promo that allows us to promote the artist without compromising on style. It’s a very smart campaign.