Night to Day: Courvoisier Cognac Proves Fit for Any Occasion
Shot in Cape Town against breathtaking backdrops, Courvoisier’s latest global campaign proves that this iconic cognac can be poured into any occasion. Wanting to break away from the image of traditional cognac and show how it can be served in a light, refreshing cocktail for daytime occasions, the brand called upon production company FAMILIA to help achieve this.
With an ambitious 34 still images and 12 videos to produce, LBB interviews director/photographer Ollie Ali and executive producer Ciaran Bennett to find out how this rebranding project came together.
LBB> Tell us about the brief from Courvoisier and the inspiration behind your concept.
Ollie> The Gala brief was all about changing the narrative of the Courvoisier drinking occasion from a traditional evening setting to a joyful summer daytime experience. My concept was to bring a fashion editorial style into the mix, treating the gala serve like you’re used to seeing a handbag or piece of jewellery in a fashion magazine. By doing this we elevated the serve visual identity from another drinks campaign to a tasteful high-end lifestyle campaign.
LBB> How did the idea develop from there into the final vision?
Ollie> Once the base idea was in place, I worked with the agency and client to come up with a set of creative tools and boundaries that would inform our final imagery. The main rule being that we would see no faces, instead breathing life into our serve moments through gorgeous natural feeling light, aspirational locations, carefully art-directed props, free flowing talent movement and elevated French fashion styling which brought a whole life and personality to our hands.
LBB> How does this project compliment your style as a photographer?
Ollie> Projects like this are an absolute joy to work on. From the minute the brief came in, I felt super aligned to it and saw a massive opportunity to bring something fresh to the drinks campaign table. When I combined my warm, natural light, graphic editorial style with Courvoisier's ideas of connection and joyful spirit, I knew something great would emerge. Fortunately, they championed my vision and enthusiastically supported it throughout the process. It was a really beautiful collaboration and I can’t thank them enough for trusting my creative vision.
LBB> What are some interesting insights that you can share from the shoot in Cape Town?
Ollie> I love shooting in Cape Town and even more, the people there. The production teams out there always go above and beyond to bring creative visions like this to life and this occasion was no different.
Cape Town itself is blessed with so much incredible landscape and beautiful architecture which made scouting for this project a dream. We pillared our search in our four main occasions - brunch, sunset soirée, picnic, and seasonal - and ended up with some epic locations, carefully timing each location to give us the best weather and time of day that set the perfect natural light foundation of our scenes. It was crucial to me that our talent felt like they were truly in each world so that I could capture the essence of candid authentic energy in my shots.
Ciaran> As this was a global campaign, we needed to make sure it could work in all markets. Therefore, we had to shoot around Cape Town’s most iconic location, Table Mountain, which given its prominence, isn’t necessarily as simple as it may sound. But we were still spoilt for choice.
LBB> The print and online campaign consists of 34 still images and 12 videos. Tell us about the timeline constraints and how you organised the shoot efficiently to complete everything in time.
Ollie> There was certainly a lot to get through over the three shoot days, especially as I was shooting both the stills and directing the motion too. But this is why we planned everything meticulously in pre-production with a ‘shoot bible’ that contained everything from the cushion options for each shot to which bottle we would be bringing in and out. This meant that on the day, our production design team, styling team, drinks specialists, talent, production and everyone else knew exactly what their role was, and the order of timing so it all went smoothly. Of course, there are always slight changes to the plan but having a strong foundation in place gave us room to do this and kept everyone comfortable along the way.
LBB> Were there any other challenges on this project and how did you find creative solutions around this?
Ollie> Of course, when shooting drinks, especially cold drinks in hot countries, you have to keep a very close eye on product. This was something we had to consider when planning whether we would use real ice or a fake ice combo.
Ciaran> The biggest challenge was definitely the changing daylight hours and the amount of content we needed to shoot. This meant we had to be super-efficient. We had to capture each of the four setups at a specific time of day and there’s no O/T when shooting a sunset, when that sun’s set, you’re wrapped whether you like it or not. This means all the other setups have to be wrapped on time too.
To help stick to such rigid timings, we had an amazing team who were super well drilled and thanks to our drinks specialist, Nick Klemp and his team, we had a never-ending supply of delicious-looking drinks ready to go. Switching between stills and live action just added to the challenge, but one that everyone involved absolutely smashed.
LBB> Since this is a global campaign, how did you consider localisations so that the assets suit different markets?
Ollie> At the beginning of any project, FAMILIA does a deep data dive, looking into who is the target audience and how we can use this data to turbocharge the creative. This allows us to make clever decisions and gives us a great amount of insight about the intended audience. This was massively considered when deciding things like styling and the type of world we created to make sure this would was relatable and engaging to the full breadth of the Courvoisier audience.
Ultimately, by allowing collaboration between all involved parties, putting trust in each HoD, and having in-depth collaborative conversations with clients throughout the process, results in tasteful, relevant, and most importantly, inclusive work.
LBB> What were your personal highlights from working on this project?
Ollie> The highlight of this project and every other is always seeing my initial concept coming to life in front of my eyes with a set of incredibly talented and wonderful humans with me. It’s such a dream to be able to create campaigns like this and work with people that share the passion along the way, putting their all into it. There’s no better feeling than calling wrap at the end of a multiple-day production and seeing the joy and rewarding emotions felt by everyone there. Knowing you made something special that didn’t exist before and overcame every obstacle along the way together to get there.
In particular, this was one of those projects where you felt like the energy of the world aligned and made it all work out – an example being a complete lack of sunset on all recce days and on the day of our sunset shoot, one of the most magical and prolonged pink sunsets I have ever witnessed, followed by a perfectly windless and clear blue-sky day for a picnic scene. Moments like this make it all feel right.
A massive thank you to Courvoisier for having me, Wonderworks for bringing me on board, FAMILIA for smashing the production, and Robot for such a warm welcome to Cape Town. It was a massive privilege and I’m super proud and grateful for everyone who made it happen.
