Audible’s Rousing Romantasy Tale Sweeps Listeners Off Their Feet

Lovers of romance – and specifically ‘romantasy’ – aren’t hiding their predilections any longer with the genre’s soaring popularity (on #BookTok and beyond) serving as proof. “Romance fans are consistently among our most engaged and voracious listeners at Audible, and we wanted to create something that honoured that dedication,” says James Finn, Audible’s global head of brand and content marketing. The latest campaign, developed by Fold7 and with a hero film directed by SMUGGLER's Adam Berg, is the genre’s celebration tapping into the elements that make listeners turn to those stories again and again. That celebration deserved to be authentic, says James, “moving far beyond any ‘guilty pleasure’ framing. We focused on highlighting the intimate connection between audio storytelling and the listener, while ensuring we showcased a wider variety of voices, perspectives, and subgenres.”

With the campaign aimed at new and seasoned romance and romantasy fans, Audible turned to Fold7 with the insight that “listeners build genuine communities around stories, narrators and authors,” says James, adding “audio significantly enhances the intimacy of romance storytelling, while the genre itself serves as ‘imagination fuel’ for exploring relationships and fantasies.”

Last year, Audible’s sci-fi-centric campaign set the bar high “so we wanted to ensure the tricky second album lived up to the levels of the first,” says James Hudson, Fold7’s creative director. “One thing we knew for sure is that we wanted to try and tell even more of a story this time round, and to explore how the transition to the real world could become even more integral to that story.”

The 360° integrated campaign spans targeted social activations, immersive fan activations, strategic OOH placements in high-traffic locations and cultural hotspots while custom visibility on platforms like Tinder and Tastemade further targets the romance theme.

The heart of the campaign is the visually-arresting film directed by Adam Berg who was chosen, according to Fold7’s James because “his reel is a beautiful blend of cinematic world-building, seductive storytelling and executional elegance. And that poured out of his treatment.” Fold7 looked to some of romantasy’s biggest hitters for script inspiration – ‘Fourth Wing’ and ‘A Court of Thorns and Roses’ –spending hours listening to the stories during the research phase. The team, says James, wanted to ensure “we got all the little details right.”

The script was a natural fit for Adam; he tells us “I love books and stories, I love films and fantasy. Anytime I get to work on something with world-building, narrative, fun and excitement it's such a treat.” He says the brief and the idea were “really nice already” which, while lovely in a lot of ways, is also “daunting as you always want to come up with something clever so you get to shoot it.” Adam tapped into the concept of a force keeping lovers apart, making “the centrifugal force a part of their story, and a force keeping them apart. Never allowing them to kiss. Thankfully, Audible and Fold7 liked that and let me on board.”

The spot is short, under a minute, yet it builds and communicates a whole world between the two characters. Adam says that he loves world building, “it's one of the best parts of this job, but it is never about just the world, always more about the characters who live in it. So we had to set up the world in just a few beats and get down to the characters as soon as possible.” A few elements helped to establish the physical and emotional setting quickly, like the “huge scale of the hall, and the slightly art deco feel of it all made it not historical and not medieval. While the dragons gave us fantasy, and then the music and the VO helped to land focus down on our heroine in just a few seconds. And as soon as we are with her, the story could really kick off,” Adam explains.

Adam wanted to keep the visuals untethered from any one genre and time period to represent the vastness of what romantasy can cover. “Our wonderful costume designer and hair and make-up gave the extras a slightly futuristic twist so our world could be populated by a fantastical cast,” he adds.

For Adam, the casting was crucial. “Lena, who plays Airwyn, was amazing. It was so important to let it be HER story. Ensuring she is even more badass than her warrior lover, and Lena really is the real thing (only her ears were fake!). Chris, the warrior, is another great find, he looks the part (real muscles, beard, and hair) and could do a Dothraki dismount from the huge horse (unfortunately cut due to timings).”

The film had to contend with an interesting tension: using visuals to advertise audio. The voiceover proved an essential element in communicating Audible’s product. “It was really important to have the VO tell the tale of the two lovers. Setting it as a narration not just a visual story and allowing the VO to not be 'see say' but instead talk about the bigger story around our visuals. Håkan's [Eriksson] music also helped push the drama and the romance of it all,” Adam explains.

The film is heavy on in-camera effects with a central rotating custom-built platform physically representing the centrifugal narrative force. Fold7’s James says that everyone was invested in making the emotions in the film feel real and like things were actually at stake. “When it came to the fundamental human emotion of it all – the desperation and determination, the fear and the panic, the longing and the lust – that all had to feel real. Because that’s the whole reason we read, watch and listen to stories in the first place. Enter Adam’s enormous set that teamed a 6-metre rotating turntable with trampolines and soaring wirework,” he adds.

Adam prefers to shoot “as much as possible for real” because a physical set provides immediate context for the actors to work with. Having the platform on set ensured “everyone moved similarly,” adding, “we used stunt performers and dancers so they had good body control and that gave us a great base for edit and post to augment. Same with the trampolines, in a tumble dryer the clothes kind of bounce around the drum, the trampoline made it so we could have people bounce around a bit in our set. It really helped with the feel of how everyone could move.”

The film is, of course, not without digital enhancement. “The ETC team did a wonderful job bringing the magic to all the bits and pieces we shot, hiding all the stuff we messed up. But all our trials and tribulations kind of helped us and them come to a clear idea of what it should be, how it should look and behave.”

Making the set spin was as tricky as it looks and Adam says there was “so much problem solving on this set” to make the idea a reality. He explains that “normally, whenever something is spinning the world around it is still, so you have a clear point of reference. Here, the whole world was supposed to spin and we needed the sun to be moving also. Anna Smoronova [DOP] built a big lightning rig to make the sun move but, when we started spinning fast, it just became a flicker. We needed to rethink that a bit.”

The huge turntable proved moody, recalls Adam, “we didn’t really know how that would work until we started shooting.” He adds with a laugh, “I’m very happy the teams at Audible and Fold7 didn't give up on us!”
Pulling off this production is something Adam is really proud of saying “making stuff that you have no idea how to actually achieve and just kind of jumping in there is so much fun.”

Adam shouts out the collaboration behind the scenes and the experts that brought the film to life, without whom it simply wouldn’t have been possible. “Ben Croker, my producer; Anna Smoronova, the DOP; Alex Vivet, production designer; Tony Fernandez, 1stAD; Jasmina Vasileva, our costume designer; and the team at ETC, 750MPH, B2Y, SMUGGLER. And of course having the trust from the client team and the agency. Dave, James, Rob, Jess, Adam, Kirsty, Michelle and Toby were all genuine collaborators every step of the way.

The director concludes, “It is such a great communal experience to make a film like this. All these great people working together, all the mistakes and strokes of genius, it's such a privilege to work on these things.”