People Will Listen, Provided You Tell Them A Good Story

Jawbone TV, which is powered by Swarm Entertainment, is highlighting 10 brands that know how to tell stories.
One of the Jawbone’s picks is 42 Below, a vodka brand from New Zealand. Here’s a 40 second film by Chris Milk commissioned by the spirits company:

According to an earlier Jawbone piece, 42 Below’s art project included contributions from David Lynch, Larry Clark, Harmony Korine, Lou Ye, Gaspar Noe, James Franco, Mike Figgis, Abel Ferrara and Cat Power, among others.
Each director was given creative freedom and a budget of $10,000 to create their short film.
Boards Magazine says the Bacardi-owned brand initially wanted to create a user-generated content contest for young filmmakers to increase brand awareness in the Chinese market. But the the idea proved unwieldy.

…so Ilya Rozhdestvensky, executive producer from 42 Below’s Beijing-based agency Ilizz Ltd., called Rajan Mehta, founder of New York-based creative studio Dagr Nott & Associates.
“One of their values is to be pure, raw, edgy and independent,” says Mehta. “So let’s let the filmmakers do what they want. Let’s not make it about you, let’s make it about dreams. Let’s make it about a canvas that all these filmmakers will get excited about.”

Going back to Jawbone’s feature article, I also saw some interesting work for Ikea for the first time.

Branded content is busting out at the seems, right now. Celebrate it, I say.