Mango’s new campaign is wryly named A Mango Campaign, which does a functional job while nodding to the unconventional meta storyline threaded throughout the main film.

Written and directed by New York-based duo rubberband via Smuggler, the film is presented as a day in the life of supermodel Kaia Gerber, who just so happens to be shooting a commercial for Mango – providing the backbone to the film’s storyline. Sitting somewhere between ‘scripted reality’ and semi-fiction, the film, named Craft Your Own Story, is split into four acts, each of which follows a different version of Gerber: ‘Reader’, ‘Actor’, ‘Gen Zer’ and ‘Model’.

“I think we felt very much like the idea of the ‘multi-faceted’ celebrity profile thing was sort of tired, and also had become a parody of itself. Mango actually felt the same way so when we pitched them the idea of doing something that was ‘a campaign about making a campaign’ and all the insanity that comes with that, they were very down,” explain rubberband directors Jason Sondock and Simon Davis. “The concept was to essentially poke fun at this idea of fashion campaigns, making them self aware.”

The meta approach was the directors’ way of “making the work feel like it fit into our worldview, as well as Kaia’s. We create a lot of fashion work in various tones, but we thought we’d lean into the inherent humour of fashion and advertising in general.” While it’s slightly parodic, the way it reflects the different sides of her personality feels somewhat earnest at the same time. “Knowing her, we wanted to write something about someone who is generally only seen from one perspective, but ultimately has way more to say and thinks about a lot more than people perceive her to.”

A scene involving Gerber speaking to a peer about all the stereotypes applied to Gen Z – obsessions with star signs, AI, and social media – is especially enjoyable. This detail was born from a real issue that they encountered: Gen Z was supposedly the campaign’s target audience, yet the directors, Gerber and Mango’s creative team all “had a really difficult time trying to define exactly what ‘Gen Z’ was in any meaningful way,” the directors recall.

They say it highlights the problem with trying to summarise an entire generation of people into a neat bracket. “Marketers are constantly trying to ‘reach Gen Z’, but none of them really know what that means or who that generation is … maybe including that generation.”

A Mango Campaign may be subtly tongue in cheek, but there is a seriousness to the approach and the craft on display, particularly Farhad Ghaderi’s cinematography. The film’s runtime clocks in at nearly eight minutes, yet there’s nothing dry or self-indulgent about it – just thoughtful entertainment.

smugglersite.com