Call him Ishmael, but be quick about it. Personal care brand Burt’s Bees made its Vine debut with a series of #6secondclassics, featuring extremely truncated versions of literary classics to promote its line of mainstay beauty products. The main characters are Burt’s Bees chapsticks and hand creams dressed up in period togs.
The stop motion videos were created by ad agency Baldwin& along with art director Jethro Ames, who’s crafted other branded Vines for GE and The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. So far, Burt’s Bees has only posted Vines of “Twenty Thousands Leagues Under the Sea” and “Little Women,” though “Moby Dick” and “The Scarlet Letter” are among other books the campaign will feature.
While the protagonists’ garb informs the Vine viewer what time period it might alluding to, there isn’t really anything literary about the videos. Full text of the Little Women Vine: “We really are quite little. And each of us women.” There’s also not much that’s literary about Burt’s Bees in the first place though, so there’s that.
The brand has only posted two videos so far, so perhaps the execution will evolve with the next set of Vines. Either way, we’re excited to see how Burt’s Bees tackles colonial adultery in Puritanical Salem, Mass.
More in Marketing
OpenAI’s measurement gaps are keeping ChatGPT ads budgets at test level
OpenAI’s ChatGPT ads have a measurement catch-22
In Graphic Detail: Where brands stand when AI agents do the shopping
Getting picked by the agents is the new commerce fight
How Kroger, Giant Eagle and DoorDash are building their agentic AI assistants
Companies are finding that they must deploy practical AI tools that bridge the gap between physical stores and online ordering.