For its new ad campaign, The New Yorker went clear across the country for inspiration.
The Condé Nast title tapped New York agency SS+K, which brought in film director J.C. Chandor to produce a slick video shot at Los Angeles Union Station. While an L.A setting for a 90-year-old New York brand may seem odd, SS+K chief creative officer Bobby Hershfield says that was the point.
"The New Yorker is for everyone, not exclusively New Yorkers," Hershfield told Adweek. "We wanted to communicate the wide appeal of The New Yorker to readers everywhere."
The film follows a young man making his way through a splintered crowd as stories unfold around him. Suspense and anticipation build as the man arrives at his train, opens his New Yorker and finds the story it turns out he wanted to finish all along.
Watch the video below:
The video is part of a broader campaign for The New Yorker with the tagline, "Where things get interesting." The campaign will run across print, digital and social media. The film will appear on Hulu, YouTube and newyorker.com, while the print ad will run in the Financial Times, The Economist, Food & Wine, People, and Travel + Leisure in addition to Condé titles Vogue, Vanity Fair and Bon Appétit. Digital ads will run on TechCrunch and across the Condé Nast network.
The campaign comes a year after The New Yorker launched a metered paywall and debuted The New Yorker Radio Hour on WNYC. Traffic to NewYorker.com is up 25 percent vs. last year, according to Omniture, while subscriptions from newyorker.com are up 61 percent.
