The advertising industry has long turned to filmmakers and actors to peddle its wares. It may be hard to tell if the tack works, but it has surely made it to the big screen.
This marriage between advertising and moviemaking has become so common that it now features at the Tribeca Film Festival. Entrants for this year’s edition of the Tribeca X Award included a short for fashion house Kenzo and another for Apple, filmed entirely on an iPhone 6S.
One benchmark to measure this relatively new genre is sales. As an industry observer said, if a company produces a short movie but does not go on to sell more, then it failed. But that would be too short-sighted and would boil down to the old dilemma of spending on advertising. One half of the money you throw at it may not work. The million-dollar question is which half?
So that point is moot. More relevant is the quality of the tale itself. If BMW, one of the advertisers that has embraced this genre, makes a great movie out of promoting its cars, why would that be any less enjoyable than a well told story?