case study
Four spots. One day. Alyson Hannigan. A fully produced outdoor campaign in the heart of Los Angeles.
Jockey came to us to launch the Skimmies shapewear line with a campaign that felt real, funny, and female. We brought in Alyson Hannigan as talent, cast the supporting roles, and designed the creative concept around a signature prop: a custom book called the Solutionary Guide that she carries throughout all four spots.
Shooting four distinct social spots in a single outdoor day is a logistics problem as much as a creative one. We built the production schedule to move efficiently between setups while maintaining the performance quality the campaign needed. The biggest variable was the sun. To control light across every setup, we rigged a giant crane with an oversized silk overhead, effectively building a soft-box the size of a city block above our talent.
The Solutionary Guide is the thread that ties the campaign together. We designed and produced it entirely in-house, down to the copy inside. In each spot, Alyson consults it to solve a common everyday wardrobe problem that Skimmies fixes. The book gave each execution a clear comedic structure and a single visual anchor that viewers could recognize across all four films.
The campaign was built for social distribution but we framed and shot every setup for multiple aspect ratios so the content could work wherever it landed. Glenn Clements directed all four spots on a single day at our downtown Los Angeles location, with the full production infrastructure you would bring to a long-form shoot: multi-camera rigs, crane, full lighting package, hair and makeup, and a cast of supporting performers.
4
spots produced
1
outdoor shoot day
Alyson
Hannigan
brand talent
2015
campaign year
the spots
Each spot centers on a real-world wardrobe problem, with Alyson consulting the Solutionary Guide to arrive at the same answer every time.
flash cycle
friction affliction
shake down
behind the lens
about this project
Careful pre-production is what makes a compressed shooting day possible. We locked the creative in pre-production so the day was purely execution. We designed each setup to share the same base location so we were moving talent and camera, not rebuilding the world from scratch every time. We also pre-lit for the overhead crane with the silk in position, which meant we were never chasing the sun or scrambling to rebuild our lighting. By the time we rolled on spot one, every subsequent spot was already staged.
Shooting outdoors in Los Angeles introduces hard, unpredictable sunlight that creates unflattering shadows and limits where you can put your talent. To solve that, we rigged a very large silk diffusion panel over the entire shooting area using a crane. This gave us a consistent, soft, controlled light source for the entire day regardless of where the sun was in the sky. It effectively turned a city park into a giant softbox. For a talent-driven brand campaign, consistent flattering light on the face is non-negotiable, and this approach let us move through four setups without fighting conditions.
Yes, we built it from the ground up. The Solutionary Guide is a custom-designed book that serves as the comedic anchor for the entire campaign. The concept was that every spot would follow the same structure: Alyson encounters a relatable wardrobe frustration, consults the guide, and arrives at Skimmies as the answer. We wrote the content, designed the cover and interior, and had it produced before the shoot. It needed to read clearly on camera and feel like a real, slightly absurd self-help book, which was exactly what we were going for.
Talent selection was part of our creative development process. We identified Alyson as the right fit because she brings natural comedic timing, broad recognition from her television work, and an authenticity that matched the campaign tone. Jockey wanted someone who felt real and funny, not polished or distant. We presented a shortlist with creative rationale for each option, made our recommendation, and managed the booking and all talent coordination from there through the shoot day.
Even though the primary destination was social media, we shot every setup for multiple aspect ratios so the content could be adapted for different placements without losing the composition. We delivered social cuts optimized for the platforms in play at the time, along with the full-format versions. Shooting for multi-format from the beginning, rather than trying to crop after the fact, is the right approach for any campaign built for digital distribution.
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