Maybe the Year of Mobile is finally upon us after all the hyperventilating and thought leadership.
Wieden + Kennedy’s newest work for Clinique stars pop singer Zara Larsson and four different versions of her song “Lush Life,” which we’re told was a hit with the young people over the summer.
“Play With Pop” (get it?) begins with the idea that a woman’s lipstick choices reflect her moods on a given day–which is not in any way a gender-specific stereotype–and it’s totally optimized for mobile. The desktop version isn’t too bad though, honestly.
You just visit PlayWithPop.com and choose which make-up look you feel like right now. Don’t worry, though–unlike real life, you can change your style at a touch whenever the hell you feel like it. Each color goes with a separate remix of the song in question, and each mix has a different video. So basically you can toggle between several options.
There’s bare or acoustic, which is “the most natural of the looks and the most intimate of the performances”:
There’s Vixen, or “a vixie-like look with a tough and fiery voice” (read: the kind of “goth” who’s never even heard of Siouxsie Sioux):
Next is Bold Country Red, which is what we imagine Justin Bieber’s producer’s version of country music would look and sound like:
Finally, Sweet or “a female power pop star tone” is the disco version:
That’s pretty much it; music press got the first look yesterday.
W+K calls its work the first interactive video to run inline on your smartphone, and its team accomplished this by separating the audio and visual components and then “resynchronizing them in the browser,” thereby allowing the video to play without using a standard platform like YouTube.
We will take their word for it on the tech side, but one can indeed toggle through the four videos and remixes without any sort of lags or glitches.
If you’re lazy or in a rush, this tweet sums it up:
1 pop star. 4 different looks. Watch the new music video with @ZaraLarsson now: https://t.co/MCNJ5mZX5L #PlayWithPophttps://t.co/Fpstb4gy10
— Clinique (@Clinique) February 9, 2016
Most importantly: Zara Larsson is 18, she’s Swedish, she still lives with her parents, and she got famous after winning Talang, or the Scandinavian version of “Blonde People Got Talent.”
We’ve never felt so old or irrelevant.
CLIENT Clinique
PROJECT NAME Play With Pop
LAUNCH DATE February 2016
URL playwithpop.com
W+K NEW YORK
Executive Creative Directors Jaime Robinson, Colleen DeCourcy
Creative Directors Kim Haxton
Copywriter Laddie Peterson
Art Director Jessica Shriftman
Interactive Art Director Andre Poli
Developer Joe Zhou
Director of Technology Charles Duncan
QA Lead Sean Jones
Creative Technologist Craig Blagg
Interactive Producer Laura Kim & Christine Young
Broadcast Producer Dom Tunon
Account Team Casey Jennings & Molly Friedman
Digital Strategist Jessica Abercrombie
Media Supervisor Wes Young & Michelle Mandell
Head of Content Production Nick Setounski
Director of Art Production Deb Rosen
Art Buying Ali Berk
Photographer (Vendor) Mackenzie Duncan
Retoucher (Vendor) Nick Leadlay
Project Manager Danielle Rounds
Business Affairs Sara Jagielski, Justine Lowe & Carolina Hernandez
Studio Designer Laura Mechling, Jill Kearton
Design Director Serif Ozcan
Designer Maja Cule
PRODUCTION PARTNER
Production Company Doomsday
Director Hiro Murai
Executive Producer Danielle Hinde
Line Producer Jason Colon
Director of Photography Larkin Seiple
Post-Production Company Final Cut
Editor Michael Wadsworth
Retouching The Mill
DEVELOPMENT PARTNER
Development Partner Company Caviar
Executive Creative Director Falk Eumann
Technology Director Sun Komen
Lead Developer Ralph Kuijpers