While typical marketing in the horse care industry entails generic imagery and product-led messaging, Zoetis Equine instead opted for emotional branding with its campaign out of Minneapolis advertising agencies Colle McVoy and 10 Thousand Design.
Centerpiece of the effort is this film celebrating the special moments that show the reciprocity of care and the beautiful synergy of humans and horses. Titled “Long Live the Horse,” the film was directed by Benjamin Sonntag of production company Rakish. A love letter to the soul of man’s other best friend, the film conveys the bond and mutual respect between various caretakers and their horses that leaves the viewer wondering who’s actually caring for whom?
Complementing the cinematic and emotional storytelling acumen of Sonntag is a score from SOUTH Music and Sound, Los Angeles, Both visuals and sound convey the special bond between people and their horses. The original song and score created by SOUTH took the #1 slot in SHOOT’s first quarterly Top Ten Tracks Chart of 2022.
Of his directorial approach, Sonntag related, “We wanted it to feel grounded. The focus was very much on the characters and discovering who the prospective cast was in real life. During Zoom interviews, the process was more about getting to know the people and their history than it was about watching them play the scenes.
Once the script was finalized, the team didn’t deviate far from what was on the page, only changing a character or two and some story beats here and there. “We wrote in narrative nuances where we could and hinted at larger stories beyond what was seen on screen,” noted Sonntag. “We wanted people to find something new to grab onto on the second or third viewing.”
SOUTH ensemble
The music too had to strike just the right balance–attained by a SOUTH ensemble which included creative directors Dan Pritikin, Matt Drenik and Jon Darling, composer Johanna Cranitch, exec producer Ann Haugen, producer Ignacio Zas and audio post mixer Robin Holden.
SOUTH’s partner/creative director Drenik shared, “It’s always a bit tricky trying to write an actual song that encompasses a spot’s sentiment without being too on the nose. We knew it needed to be stripped-down, pure in its performance, to match the storyline, and come across like its perfect counterpart. When songwriters are given this type of brief, they need to dig deep, because they’re not only trying to find themselves in the song, but also somehow thread their own narrative into the existing storyline and make them become one in the same.
“Our biggest challenge was to find the right artists that could tackle this project. And when John Prine is referenced, there needs to be a certain amount of soul and fearlessness in the writers to make it work. Luckily, Johanna Cranitch (The Cranberries, White Prism) was our artist-in-residence at the studio. She was able to crack the code by writing a beautiful song that doesn’t sound overly complicated, but rather lived-in by its simplicity. And I believe that’s what made it a perfect counterpart to director Benjamin Sonntag’s visual storytelling.”
The collaborative relationship and rapport SOUTH enjoyed with Sonntag also proved invaluable. Drenik related, “We were brought in early by Ben due to our friendship with Rakish. Ben was a big help in the beginning, guiding us through a few different explorations before we landed on this. He became a strong advocate for what we were attempting to do. The team at Colle McVoy were the perfect partners during the process. When there’s true collaboration between agency, director and us, the end product is usually pretty special.”
Click here for the full Top Ten Tracks Music Chart for the first quarter of 2022.
