HONG
After our first exploration of conceptual fashion film with Between Selves, we decided to test our approach against the market by creating an advertisement that would be more accessible and immediately understandable to a wider audience.
Authenticity vs. Readability
Following an initial, deeply personal project exploring identity, we wanted to experiment with a more accessible approach: creating an advertisement built around a universal desire — to live freely, beyond constraints.
We see this desire as one of the most powerful psychological drivers in luxury advertising and aspirational branding, often concealed behind seductive imagery and storytelling. Our goal was therefore to understand how these mechanisms work and translate them onto the screen indirectly, without ever making the message explicit.
The Protagonist
To achieve this, we identified recurring archetypes from the world of cinema: the ingénue and the sovereign woman, with her feline nonchalance.
These archetypes allow us to establish a more immediate connection with the audience while creating a sense of distance from constraints, whether material or social.
What Is the Purpose of This Advertisement?
The primary objective of this advertisement is to understand the psychological mechanisms underlying the pursuit of social validation on social media, then test our hypotheses against reality.
Beyond this theoretical exploration, the project also allows us to develop practical skills in advertising filmmaking and directly experiment with how these mechanisms can be translated into images.
Conclusion
As with Between Selves, HONG has taught us a great deal through hands-on practice and real-world experimentation. This project has helped us better understand the aspirations of a broader audience, while also revealing how new technologies, particularly AI, are transforming visual expectations and encouraging the emergence of increasingly spectacular and viral content.
Building on these insights, we want to approach our next project with a bolder visual and conceptual direction, exploring the codes of virality in an attempt to reach a wider audience without compromising our creative identity.
