One Billion Views & Counting: The SK-II Campaign That Proved What Creators in This Industry Have Been Saying for Years

It feels like creators in production, edit, VFX, music and sound have been calling out to work closer with brands (and from earlier on in the process) for close to a decade. But successful examples of this in practice have been somewhat scarce. 

When we heard how this particular campaign unfolded – with a group of cross-country cross-agency talent, four major production companies, five multi-award winning directors from around the world, just one UK music company and one UK sound studio working on every one of the six films in the series – we asked ourselves the question, could this finally be the case study to convince brands and agencies to put creators up front with them in the process? Can putting creators in one room with brand and agency be the magic that campaigns need to go viral?

The animated SK-II STUDIO ‘VS’ anthology series, which delves into the human stories of athletes Simone Biles, Kasumi Ishikawa, Mahina Maeda, Liu Xiang, Ayaka Takahashi and Misaki Matsutomo, plus Hinotori Nippon, launched ahead of the Olympics in May 2021. By the time the games opened on the 23rd of July, the campaign had already racked up over 1 billion views and an unheard of 99.2% positive sentiment across the board. The most extraordinary thing about this campaign is that, despite its huge production scale and momentous results, it was pulled together by only a small handful of creators, all working together with the brand, ‘in one room’, right from the beginning. 

Wanting to explore every angle of how this came together, LBB got an unprecedented level of access to the core collective who reinvented the traditional notion of a creative team: Delphine Buttin, SK-II’s senior brand director; Leo Savage, former WPP 'Black Ops' lead creative director; Nihar Das, WPP 'Black Ops' founder; Siddika Dehlvi, WPP 'Black Ops’ global business leader; and Simon Elms, director and composer at Eclectic Music and Bark Soho – the only company that worked on every single film and was central to the final works’ imaginative and sophisticated sound. Plus, over the course of six articles we go in depth behind the scenes with the directors from Imaginary Forces, Platige Image, C3 and Passion Pictures, who made this project such a visual and sonic feast that over a billion viewers loved.

In addition to the people we spoke to, the project wouldn't have been possible to pull off without the additional members of the core team: Danni Mohammed, global strategic leader; San Takashima, executive producer; Nathan Wilson, global integration lead; Katie Mulligan, and strategic planner and copywriter.

Predicting the Theme of the Olympics: Female Athletes' Mental Health

When an event as momentous as the Olympics comes around, brands everywhere clamour to get a piece of the huge global audience who tune in for the games. For Japanese cosmetics brand SK-II, the Olympics’ 2020 Tokyo location presented the ideal opportunity to push for more. “#CHANGEDESTINY is at the heart of our brand purpose at SK-II. For years, we have celebrated how destiny is not a matter of chance, but a matter of choice through the stories of courageous women around the world. This year, we wanted to strengthen our commitment towards our brand purpose, and launched SK-II STUDIO – the brand’s first film studio division and content hub dedicated to tackling social pressures impacting women today through the power of film and storytelling," explains Delphine Buttin, SK-II’s senior brand director. “The films are all about the female athletes being taken seriously and celebrated for their talent, not what they look like,” adds Simon Elms. 

In a Nostradamus-like fashion it seems this campaign kicked off a narrative that would run throughout the Tokyo games – women’s and athletes’ mental health. Simone Biles’ story, VS Trolls, was the first of SK-II STUDIO’s films to be launched in May 2021, ahead of the games. The film tells of her struggle with internet trolling and mental health. Her courageous decision to pull out of the games to focus on her mental health is a poignant sign of why authentic stories about these athletes are so important - it reminds us they are human, even if they are exceptionally talented.

While SK-II made history by being the first beauty brand to sponsor the Olympic games, they took standing out from the crowd to the next level – completely reimagining what an Olympics advertising sponsorship can look like and how it can be made. And just like female athletes qualifying for the Olympics, the process that the brand and its creative partners took on was a combination of true hard work, breath-taking attention to detail and a passion for exploring, through a human lens, the social pressures women are facing today. 

While the beautiful craft and attention to detail is undeniable, the methodology behind the project  is just as fascinating to delve into. The anthology was made in a way most creators in our industry dream of - brand, creative, strategy, production, music and sound all at the table together, from the beginning, working remotely from all across the world long before Covid mandated it. 

The anthology is a "rich tapestry of craft," says Nihar Das, WPP 'Black Ops’ founder (who was instrumental in pulling together what might be the next generation of agency network teams) and we couldn’t agree more. Every film is a clear labour of love with a dedicated team behind it. It brought together award-winning directors, Jon Saunders, Alan Williams, Tackom, Bartek Kik, and Damian Nenow as well as London-based music company Eclectic and its sound design studio Bark Soho, and a whole host of agency creatives from all over the world, led by Leo Savage, former WPP 'Black Ops' lead creative director, before throwing out the rule book and asking them all to make magic happen.

Breaking Creative Boundaries

To get this project off the ground required a huge amount of strategic planning, creativity, and the freedom to try doing something that hasn’t been done before. Though SK-II is a beauty brand, the goal was to explore, through the athletes, human stories first.

The brand started by launching its first ever film studio division and content hub [SK-II STUDIO], commissioning six unique stories centred on how the athletes struggled with being taken seriously for their talent, how the pressure of beauty standards threatened to dictate their lives, and how they worked to push past all these limitations.

“The aim was to do a Netflix-level series about beauty, told through the perspective of six Olympic stories; what the athletes went through and how they were feeling about it, how they internalised the pressure and how they found themselves in competition with the world around them,” says Leo Savage, former WPP 'Black Ops' lead creative director. Siddika Dehlvi, WPP 'Black Ops’ global business leader, adds: "It wasn’t an ad campaign that we wanted to produce but rather a cultural impact. Not ads. Not commercials. Something different. Something impossible. Each film a unique vision, a unique voice. But bound together by a singular brand vision. All part of a single conversation about the nature of beauty today. We wanted to partner with the best and brightest talents in the business, each one lending their voice, their vision, and their talent to this series, creating something that makes a moment of cultural time."

It was clear from the outset that a standard agency model wasn’t the right approach for a project of this magnitude. Instead, the brand opted for an experimental 'Black Ops' configuration from WPP, which saw handpicked creatives from across the network, each uniquely qualified to solve a specific problem, come together to tackle the brief. “We group, regroup, and dismantle around problems, disaggregating once the problem is solved as part of our new working model, where there were so many moving parts; we moved from baton passing to huddle – that removed any form of decision latency,” explains Nihar, the founder of WPP’s Black Ops. 

Unrestricted by traditional agency structures and job titles, the Black Ops team and the partners they brought into the fold weighed in on the fine details, with strategists becoming producers, musicians working hand in hand with creatives on the story and brand managers working with all parties around one 'virtual' table, even long before Covid. “We’d be on the phone all together, talking about the craft and creativity of the story, the flow, the music. Each film probably has suggestions and creative elements in it that came from someone you wouldn’t expect. There were some pieces of music that I really liked and at one point Simon was making suggestions on the storytelling.  It was quite an amazing collaborative effort,” adds Leo.

It sounds cliché but there were really no rules when it came to finding the best people to work on the anthology and that’s why the credits on each film are a truly international roster of talent, who worked tirelessly across time zones and multiple locations on the story, visuals, music, VFX, and so much more.

“We have never been able to do such a big project with such a small project workflow; without too many eyeballs, breaking a lot of process rules. We worked with no layers, no hierarchies, no real oversight,” remembers Leo. Without siloes or rules to follow, the walls of assigned roles soon dissolved and everyone began to work as “true partners”, contributing ideas and suggestions whenever it felt organic.

SK-II knew from the outset that it wanted each film to have a distinct look and feel, an identity as unique as the athletes featured. Reaching out to different production houses and best-in-class creative partners ensured that every project would be a standalone work of art, with an original idea, music, and visuals, uninfluenced by its creative siblings. The music was another essential element (“We thought of music like a distinct character in each film”, says Leo) of the equation and the London-based music company, Eclectic, and their sister company, the sound specialists Bark Soho, were tasked with creating an aural identity for every film, whether that involved remixing an old anime soundtrack, working with John Legend, composing original scores, or tracking down China’s next popstar and arranging their song to perfectly fit the film at hand. 

They were the only creative partners to get oversight of all six films, including the trailers, mnemonics and AR experiences. Famed for being one of only a few music companies owned and managed by composers, their reputation for being extremely hands-on with projects was one of the reasons why Leo and the team wanted them involved. Eclectic’s director/composer Simon Elms recalls Leo saying “that agencies often fail to grasp the intricacies of music, and that’s why you need to honestly say if the right decisions are being made. We haven’t got the luxury of time on this project. We need you to be a creative partner.” Simon adds: “It was the direct relationship between us, the creative team, the director, and, crucially, the client, that helped to achieve so much in such a short period of time. Because we were able to have an open dialogue with all the parties, we could protect the integrity of the music - the tracks weren’t ravaged by a sea of opinions. We fought some fires trying to get each film out of the door but because we’re a music company of composers, we have a deeper conceptual understanding of how things work, which makes us nimbler when it comes to quick and creative decision making.” 

SK-II ‘VS’ anthology series

VS Rules, directed by Alan Williams, Imaginary Forces; Matt Holyoak, photographer; music by Eclectic, sound by Bark Soho

VS Obsession, directed by Bartek Kik, Platige Image; Matt Holyoak, photographer; music by Eclectic, sound by Bark Soho

VS Limitations, directed by Takcom, C3; Matt Holyoak, photographer; music by Eclectic, sound by Bark Soho

VS Machines, directed by Alan Williams, Imaginary Forces; Matt Holyoak, photographer; music by Eclectic, sound by Bark Soho

VS Pressure, directed by Damian Nenow, Platige Image; Matt Holyoak, photographer; music by Eclectic, sound by Bark Soho

VS Trolls, directed by Jon Saunders, Passion Pictures; Matt Holyoak, photographer; music by Eclectic, sound by Bark Soho