Suave Believers
Most think Suave is to cheap to work, and if you're a black girl with natural hair you'd pretty much pass it right by. But Suave is loved amongst its most loyal fan base, and so the powers that be determined that what it had was an image problem. Most would opt to rebrand, but regardless of your feelings about Suave the name still carries weight, you can't just throw decades of hard work out the door. So instead they set out to make the brand relevant with some good ole fashion trolling.
Trolling might be to harsh of a word. Switcheroo perhaps? Eck that word seems to dated, lets stick with trolling. The plan was quite genius, Suave disguised itself as a chic new brand named Evaus. The weeks leading up to our shoot Evaus was sent to beauty bloggers and influencers who would review the shampoo thinking it was the latest luxury branded hair care product. When they arrived on the shoot day to tell us about their experiences thats where the caper was exposed.
I was over the print/photography part of this campaign, tasked with doing portraits of the 12 girls who graced our studio. Working in tandem with the Director and DP we laid out a game plan to make sure we wouldn't step on each others toes when it came to splitting time between print and video. The set was lit with a series of Arri Sky Panels and a couple of 10K HMI in lue of strobes, There wasn't a moment I couldn't capture. I shot with a Canon 5Dmk III and an old school Canon 7D for good measure. Even after all these years my 7D still held up, and even out paced the 5D in a few cases. Check out the rest of the campaign and a few of my favorite snaps below.
Till the next time - M
