Brief
Lush initially came to us with a news article and an intention to help shine light on an issue they thought deserved a bigger conversation. This news article was about a number of police operations where undercover police officers formed intimate relationships with female activists, stealing dead children’s names to shore up their fake identities, and spying on family justice campaigns.
The scandal was known as “SpyCops” and there was an enquiry going on centred around a group of women who felt the grooming of an undercover policeman amounts to state-sponsored abuse of women. These women wanted to voice this issue to a wider audience and LUSH wanted to support them in their quest.
The Idea
LUSH and the women behind the” SpyCops” enquiry wanted a film to help spark debate, yet they wanted it to be reflective of their personal experiences and as authentic as possible. We were on board to support them in this and got a got skilled narrative film director who deals with drama to help do this story justice. As creatives we had a huge responsibility to approach this in the right way to ensure we were as authentic as possible and sensitive to the profound impact this situation had on these women’s lives.
We decided to go down a narrative route and worked closely with the women effected. They advised and were constantly consulted on the story we needed to tell, the script, the casting and the final film to ensure that we gave their voice and message the right tone in a way that would be gripping to a viewer. This film needed to sum up their feelings for a very personal and life changing subject matter.
The Result
The impact of the film was immense. It was divisive and sparked the intended debate.
LUSH has always taken a strong political stance on human rights, animal welfare, and environmental conservation and this campaign was true to the core values of the brand.
We came to Odelay with a pretty tough brief. We needed a minute long charity film turned around in under 6 weeks for a campaign Lush were rolling out into their UK shop windows. The budget was very low but Odelay worked with it and managed our expectations well along every step of the way, whilst adding great production value on screen. What we found the most refreshing was that they simply got the concept, sprung into action, understood exactly what we needed and were able to turn our basic brief and script outline into a film which everyone here was incredibly happy with and also contributed hugely to public understanding of the campaign's message.
Vaia Ikonomou, Lush - Manager of Production
