Mill+ worked with Y&R and VML New York, the Drink Up effort and multi-platinum, Grammy award-winning singer, songwriter, actress and author Ashanti to release her latest single, “Let’s Go.”
Drink Up, in collaboration with the Partnership for a Healthier America, of which First Lady Michelle Obama is the Honorary Chair, encourages people to drink more water more often.
Four versions of the video, reflecting different levels of hydration, were delivered to Y&R and their partner company VML, who developed the interactive software for a dedicated site. The video that is shown is determined by the level of social media surrounding it – the more tweets the website receives, the more hydrated, in terms of visuals and sound, the video becomes.
The Mill+ team created all the hydration elements, which comprise of flowers that come to life and multiply as Ashanti sings. Once they are fully hydrated they transition into an explosion of graphical colour. Visitors to the site can further interact with the video by pausing it and viewing their tweets and watching behind the scenes footage.
Mill+ shot the video in New York with Ashanti, and her great team of choreographers and make up artists helping out. We then completed the post back in London. Essentially, the highest quality version of the promo is unlocked by the public’s media activity – the more uses of the hashtag #DrinkUpAshanti, the better the quality becomes. The idea was that the flower would come to life and then gradually become increasingly rich, almost psychedelic.