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Make me a star

Posted in Advertising, Media, Marketing, Digital, Creative, Latest reporters' blogs, Lucy Tesseras April 23rd, 2008 by Lucy Tesseras

Giorgio Armani yesterday launched a worldwide competition in a bid to find a talented, undiscovered director to create a high profile ad campaign for his new fragrance collection Get Together. How very X Factor.

Prospective would-be directors have been asked to interpret the designer’s theme of “freedom and togetherness” and submit a video of their work for the fashion maestro’s perusal.

All work will be then showcased on the Emporio Armani Parfum website and members of the public will be asked to vote for their favourite clips, before 10 finalists from across the globe are put forward and judged by the man himself.

The lucky winner will then see their entry go into production all over the world, plus they’ll receive €10,000 in prize money – all in all, not a bad way to kick start your directing career.

As admirable as it is of the fashion impresario I can’t help thinking he might have an ulterior motive. While it may seem like a selfless act, helping out a poor struggling director desperate to hit the big time, a more cynical person might think Armani is simply jumping on the reality show bandwagon and following in the footsteps of TV talent contest such as the X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent, The Apprentice, Project Catwalk and all the various theatre-led ‘find a leading lady’ style shows that make an overnight star of the winner and help generate huge amounts of publicity for their creators.

Instead of launching yet another new fragrance campaign, which could quite easily get overlooked or overshadowed, Armani has cleverly turned the process into a well-publicised media venture, which has the potential of reaching a widely expanded and totally new audience. Clever man.

Winning some kind of high profile competition seems to be the only way to go these days if you want instant gratification and a head start in showbiz, so good luck if you’re planning on becoming the next Scorsese or Spielberg.