Storyboarding a One-of-a-Kind Campaign

How St. Germain's daring live-stream campaign transformed a classic liqueur into a millennial sensation.

Years ago, the French liqueur company, St. Germain, launched an ambitious campaign to rebrand their flagship elderflower liqueur and make it more appealing to millennials. Historically associated with an older demographic, St. Germain aimed to refresh its image and make the product “cool” again.

Instead of opting for traditional 30-second TV commercials, they decided to embrace social media, choosing a then brand new live video-sharing platform called Periscope.

If you remember, Periscope allowed users to live stream video clips to their audience, who could react in real-time. These videos could be viewed for up to 24 hours before disappearing into the ether (Periscope was later acquired by Twitter and discontinued in 2021).

At the time, Periscope was all the rage, and St. Germain capitalized on its popularity by launching a bold, somewhat clandestine campaign. The challenge was that the spots had to be filmed live, with no option for post-production editing. Everything had to be perfect as it streamed live to viewers.

They produced a total of six live spots, each shot and broadcast every hour on the hour. And to top it off, they had to film each one on an iPhone 6 to ensure the live streaming worked seamlessly.

Here’s how the concept was pitched to me for storyboarding:

“Imagine you’re a voyeur peering through a peephole as a glamorous woman (played by model Hannah Simone) moves about her upscale French apartment in her finest lingerie, completely unaware she’s being watched.”

My initial rough sketches for the first 3 frames