📸 Paparazzi Inspired Photo Shoots 🚶

That Daily Mail DRIPPPPPPPPPP 💧

Its the weekend… but the grind NEVER stops. Let’s talk about the trend of paparazzi and street style photoshoots being used by a ton of clothing brands right now…

Balenciaga

First off we have this example from a few years ago.

They took this to another level, hyper stylizing the shoot with their recent eyewear campaign.

APC

A more subtle take on this is the campaign for APCs new bags, which mimic a sneaky, subtle candid, teasing what the consumer would look like from someone else’s perspective. This effect is also driven by intentionally obscuring the models face

Sporty & Rich

Sporty & Rich took this idea to another level by essentially recreating 90s paparazzi shots of John Kennedy Jr. and Caroline Bessette for their Fall drop.

YZY

A few years back, Yeezy leveraged the enormous trove of Kardashian pap shots for their Yeezy Season 6 campaign.

Why These Work

At the most basic level, these campaigns stand out due to the fact that they feel somewhat natural, and not heavily manufactured.

But I’d argue that they tap into a subconscious feeling even more…

The Psychology of Celebrity & Paparazzi

What all of these have in common is that they tap into our collective consciousness of what a celebrity paparazzi shot communicates.

As an avid reader of dailymail.co.uk I love a celebrity paparazzi photo.

While the majority of these are staged and manufactured often times for promotional purposes.

Case in point these recent photos of A$AP Rocky being used to promote the new Bottega Veneta collection.

Paparazzi shots and the presence of recorded media subconsciously signal to us that the subject matters. (whether or not this is true is a different story) They are a societal figure of note, meant to be examined and explored even when in the same mundane context we all live in like the sidewalk or airport.

And they mirror the consumers own subconscious desire to become a person of note by consuming the products being worn by the subject of a paparazzi photo.

While its not the case anymore, in the 2010s any Kanye West paparazzi shoot instantly catapulted the brands he was wearing to massive sales.

While these campaigns are an interesting way of presenting your collection in a public setting, they also trigger an inherent psychological trigger derived from decades of exposure to mass media paparazzi photo shoots.

We all have a subconscious desire to be important, to be seen. So add to cart, put in your amex platinum credit card number, and get one step closer to admiration.

About Me

Jake Bell is a content marketing strategist based in NYC. He specializes in branding, art direction, creative strategy, content creation, and making things cool.

To get in touch visit www.jb.studio

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