overview

When you hear ‘Hard Rock’, it’s highly likely you equate the brand with music. Whether at their cafe, or at a casino, or one of their resorts, they strive to achieve an image based on music and the lifestyle that comes with it. It’s clear when you look at the huge guitars that are synonymous with their branding or the amazing collection of memorabilia they have displayed in all their locations.

When Hard Rock wanted to overhaul some of their properties in the United States, that included a billion-dollar project to construct a giant, globally-recognized glass guitar on their resort in Hollywood, Florida.

To sell something this massive, Hard Rock wanted a powerhouse video production company.

Artex was the choice, alongside Redline Media, to deliver a campaign that truly told the story of the rockstar lifestyle, which is the life a guest can expect to live at any Hard Rock property.

Process

The name given to this campaign was “Discover Your Rhythm” which worked to convey the experience one would get with the Hard Rock brand, which differs from day-to-day life.

The heartbeat of the campaign obviously had to be the music. But to elevate the music aspect, we formulated a concept where every single action on film was synced to the music, resulting in a beautiful audiovisual experience that encapsulates exactly what the Hard Rock brand offers.

A perfect execution of our concept required us to be aggressive in our approach. The campaign had to be “in-your-face” music- and rhythm-forward, so that an obvious connection between audio and visual would be made.

We imagined a fever-dream, heart-racing experience, where sight and sound moved at a rapid-fire pace to get that adrenaline going. A combination of fast-motion camera work, elaborate trick shots, and VFX scene changes helped us pull it off.

This shoot was not without it’s challenges. Not only did it have to live up to our high aesthetic standards, but this spot would fail if the visuals and audio were not perfectly in sync. Additionally, because we were shooting in a high-traffic, popular location, we had to schedule production during off-hours and be highly-efficient with our shots.

A metronome ended up being key to our shoot, with our actors almost choreographing their moves to the music. We can’t praise our talent enough – they already had the burden of delivering a believable performance, but to add to it, they also had to now time each action, each footstep, each hand movement just right. The stars had to align for this one, from pre-planning to on-set patience to editing room finesse.

Result

In regards to TV and digital media for Hard Rock in 2019 and 2020, this campaign was at the center.

Our package included social media content, 30-second TV commercials, and longer-format 60- and 90-second web content, all centered around the same audiovisual concept. In addition to paid media, this campaign was shown in US airports and substantially on streaming services like Hulu and more.

Working along with Redline Media, Los-Angeles based video production company Artex was responsible for the creative approach and execution, treatment, production, and post-production for this project.

In 2020, it was our honor that the American Advertising Federation recognized us with multiple ADDY awards for this campaign, including in the sound design and cinematography categories, and in the online video category.