In ‘Vanquish’ Luxury Meets Surrealism in the English Countryside for Aston Martin
Anomaly Berlin is no stranger to creating bold, boundary-pushing campaigns, and their latest work for Aston Martin’s Vanquish is testament to that. The company’s executive creative director Sebastian Lyman and his team crafted a surreal, futuristic campaign that not only reflects the essence of the Vanquish but also redefines the visual language of ultra-luxury car advertising.
Seb speaks to LBB’s Olivia Atkins about the inspiration behind the campaign, the importance of collaborating with forward-thinking clients, and why the product itself always serves as the ultimate creative guide.
LBB> Where did the idea for the Aston Martin Vanquish campaign come from?
Seb> The idea was born from the car itself. Its name, aside from being profoundly bad-ass, encapsulates everything the car stands for. It is the conqueror. It destroys expectations, conformity, apathy, and all other cars that came before it. All we wanted to do for the campaign was to harness its innate dominance and audacity. It’s rare that the product name itself can also be the idea.
LBB> The campaign takes a bold, futuristic approach. How did Anomaly Berlin work to shift this visual language, and what inspired the avant-garde, otherworldly design?
Seb> We imagined a world where everything has been vanquished. The blue landscapes are a surrealistic interpretation of the English countryside, while the god-like space is used to contain our series of tableaus that express the different dominant attributes of Vanquish.
The visual language again leans into the grandiosity of the car. Its first incarnation was in 2001, but this Vanquish also contains 111 years of Aston Martin’s DNA. So there is a timelessness to it, but also a futurism. We tried to capture that within our world by bringing together elements of ancient Roman architecture, CGI sculptures, and futuristic, avant-garde fashion. It also helps that the car is a piece of moving art itself.
LBB> What gave you licence to break away from the traditional luxury car ad aesthetic?
Seb> We’re actually playing within the world of ultra luxury. Which uses a different set of codes than the traditional luxury space. We wanted to focus on revealing the product’s iconicity, to derive substance and emotion from the car. It’s staggering that something can embody so much heritage, craft and engineering mastery. Aesthetically, it was about giving those stories the reverence they deserve.
At Anomaly Berlin, we also work on the ultra luxury appliance manufacturer Gaggenau, and it’s always a similar journey of drilling to the very core of the product and trying to express its true depth without simply borrowing interest from other facets of culture.
When working with luxury and ultra-luxury brands, you realise that the products are exquisitely designed, crafted and built. So it's always odd to me that so much of the communication in this space is generic and one-dimensional. In this instance, the whole campaign idea was informed by the product...it's an absolute masterpiece of design and engineering; so to communicate this message in a very traditional way, like everyone else does, would be a huge disservice.
LBB> How responsive was Aston Martin to moving away from a conventional approach and embracing a more modern, surreal tone for this campaign?
Seb> We are lucky to have such a fantastic client in Aston Martin, who not only support our vision, but challenge us at every step of the way to be continuously bold and distinctive. It was a very collaborative process, and we wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. As the old adage goes: ‘great clients deserve great work’. And great collaborative clients deserve the greatest work.
