Andis: a Case Study in Modernizing a Classic Brand
Background
The Andis company was formed 100 years ago, by Matthew Andis, who created the first generation of today’s Master Clipper in the basement of his home in Racine, WI.
Four generations later, the company remains family owned and operated, headquartered in Wisconsin, and their products made in the USA. Today, through the relentless pursuit of innovation and adherence to quality, Andis remains one of the most trusted, iconic brands in the beauty industry, with its clippers used by hairstylists and groomers worldwide.
Andis’ ad agency at the time presented me with the opportunity to create social media content (Facebook, Instagram, etc.) and product videos for both their barber and animal grooming lines . They didn’t seem to have a grasp of the potential of the brand, and of the products. As a result, content created for Andis’ social media accounts had grown stale and repetitive.
In fact, the agency’s directive on Andis was pretty underwhelming:
“Work on them last. They’re not our priority”
Yikes.
Despite that, I saw an amazing opportunity to contemporize and update the visual language of their social media campaigns. At the time I did so, I had no idea of the exciting places those changes would lead.
The Starting Point
Upon beginning my work, I familiarized myself Andis’ brand strategy / identity. Their style (in regards to their barber line-up) was ‘urban’, ‘edgy’, and ‘gritty’. Next, I looked at their current crop of social media content, to identify what worked, and what was falling short.
“My focus had become clear: show Andis in a bold, aggressive style, that spoke directly to the desires of hairstylists”
This gave me a solid foundation to build the new spots off of; it was a way to maintain consistency by aesthetically linking new content to the old, while clearly-defining what I had creative freedom to improve upon. When you’re transitioning from existing brand content to an updated style, this sort of artistic investigation is essential. I wasn’t making a jarring, 180-degree pivot to my personal style, I was making incremental, but significant changes to an established style.
Returning to the list of things Andis’ current product videography was doing well here are the things I loved:
The edginess. I loved the attitude Andis was being presented with; there was a self-confidence to it, as if; “You (the hairstylist) have confidence you can create any hair style. This clipper will never fail you in creating that hairstyle.” That dependability is present in the craftsmanship, finish, and power of the clippers.
Urban: beyond the simple fact that urban barbershops are a huge portion of Andis’ business, there was an authenticity to the messaging. as if it wereIt was presented as one hairstylist telling another that these products are great, as opposed to a company listing the benefits of a clipper.
But when we got to ‘gritty’, that’s when things started to break down.
“Gritty” can very quickly cross the line into “dirty”. Once it crosses that line, the viewer starts making tons of negative associations, such as “cheap”, “there’s no thought or care being put into this'“, “unprofessional”, etc.
I really felt as if Andis’ product videos had unfortunately crossed that line, and was now working counter to everything that the Andis brand stood for: innovation, power, dependability, build quality, and professionalism. When you brand is trying to be the standard-bearer for your industry, cheapness is something that can’t be associated with you.
By doing this breakdown, my focus had become clear: show Andis in a bold, aggressive style, that spoke directly to the desires of hairstylists.
This was shaping up to be a very fun challenge.
My Approach
Now that I knew my primary focus was going to be on undoing the “grittiness” of the previous spots, I began brainstorming how to do this.
The things that can drive a feeling of “grittiness” are entirely subjective, but it is often driven by camera, lighting, and “polish”. These would become my primary areas of focus with new product videography.
Camera: the original spots were filmed on DSLR cameras, with limited camera support, lenses, filters, etc. This was a fairly easy one to upgrade. I ditched the ad agency’s camera and studio setup, in favor of Haban Media Works’ own RED Monstro 8K Cameras - the same cameras used on countless Hollywood feature films and high-end commercial advertising. Offering an astounding 16 times more resolution than high-definition video, this gave 2 enormous advantages: (1) the ability to re-frame / adjust compositions in editing, and (2) down-sampling for the final export, which gives an incredibly crisp, clear rendered image.
Lighting: “gritty” lighting is often seen as dim, or under-exposed. This isn’t necessarily true. Experience shows that effective, low-key lighting (dramatic and shadowy, with bright highlights) is more reliant on properly-metered lighting ratios to create depth in the shadows. This allowed me to create imagery that is very moody and dark, but would still retain shadow detail. To facilitate this, I ended up building my own home studio, complete with overhead lighting grid and custom light modifiers for shooting chrome products like Andis clippers. I was able to be much more precise in my lighting, delivering a painterly and cinematic image to product videography.
Polish: This is where the previous upgrades in lighting and camera really bore tremendous results. The camera had high resolution, 16+ stops of dynamic range, and almost zero digital noise, to give me an incredible versatility in post to tweak framing, color grade footage, apply filters and special effects, etc. The final step in the process was to render the footage out at a much higher resolution and more robust codec than previous spots.
The Results
You can see many examples in this blog.
I loved that I was able to successfully execute my plan for the brand. When looking at them, there is no comparison between the videography I created and previous spots. There is a level of refinement and richness that simply wasn’t there before. This wasn’t by accident, I actually took a great deal of inspiration from luxury automobile ads - showing off curves and detail, with reflections tracing the contours of the products.
In doing so, I created a sense among consumers of these products being lust-worthy status symbols. That is entirely born out by the dramatic rise in social media engagement (up over 40% in one year, with no additional ad spend, Andis products making a number of publications’ “best buys” lists (GQ, Maxim, among others), and my product videos earning 3 out of the top 4 most viewed videos on Andis’ social media. This massive shift - away from “bad gritty” to luxury - was all done in under a year of carefully planned and executed product videography.
Now, Andis has incorporated much of that updated style and visual language into their re-branding efforts ahead of their 100th anniversary. Being able to help close out a century of innovation, and usher in a new era for the company, was incredibly rewarding.