Unilever encourages women around the world to play with beauty in Lux Hot Air Balloons, a TV ad for Lux beauty soap. A beautiful brunette woman luxuriates in a bath of soap suds. She’s driven in the back of a van to a beach where her bath is attached to a pink hot air balloon. To the accompaniment of Up Up And Away (Fifth Dimension) she is farewelled by a large crowd of women. Below her female laborers in a field of grain are inspired to place beauty spots on their faces. In Moscow female soldiers readjust their busts while old women are inspired to apply red lipstick.
A passing pilot is so distracted by the sight of the bath that his plane crashes into a nearby cliff, unleashing a heart-shaped fireball. Workers in a clothing factory run to the windows in excitement. In a Moroccan market, ladies gaze at their idol in the sky and smear their faces with grains and spices. By the time we’re finished the sky is full of pink Lux balloons, each carrying a woman soaking in Lux beauty.
Click on the image below to play the video.
Lux Hot Air Balloons Credits
The Lux campaign was developed at Santo Buenos Aires by creative directors Sebastián Wilhelm and Maximiliano Anselmo, copywriter Pablo Minces, art director Luigi Ghidotti, agency executive producer Facundo Prez, agency producer Andrés Salmoyraghi, account supervisors Stefano Zunino, Marc Capra, Flavio Cortes, Rodrigo Toledo, planners Andrea Mariño and Maria Cavallieri. Advertisers supervisors were Solange Ricoy, Ivana Cunha, Corina Karsch, Fernando Laratro.
Filming was directed by Nacho Gayan via Stink, London, and Agosto, with executive producer Rafa Montilla and line producer Toni Moreno at Agosto and executive producer Daniel Bergmann and producer Robert Herman at Stink, with director of photography John Lynch and editor Fabrizio Rossetti.
Post production was done at Glassworks, London, whose team included Flame artists Toby Brockhurst and Sheldon Gardner, and 3D artists James Mann and Daniel Jahnel. James and Daniel built the 3D balloon which was carefully composited in throughout the commercial. Toby and Sheldon completed crowd replacement and created backgrounds from stills and live action.
Up Up and Away
Music rights (Up Up And Away – performed by The Fifth Dimension in 1967) were arranged by CCCI Productions, Buenos Aires.
Lyrics for Up Up And Away (Jimmy Webb)
Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon?
Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon?
We could float among the stars together, you and I
For we can fly we can fly
Up, up and away
My beautiful, my beautiful balloon
The world’s a nicer place in my beautiful balloon
It wears a nicer face in my beautiful balloon
We can sing a song and sail along the silver sky
For we can fly we can fly
Up, up and away
My beautiful, my beautiful balloon
Suspended under a twilight canopy
We’ll search the clouds for a star to guide us
If by some chance you find yourself loving me
We’ll find a cloud to hide us
We’ll keep the moon beside us
Love is waiting there in my beautiful balloon
Way up in the air in my beautiful balloon
If you’ll hold my hand we’ll chase your dream across the sky
For we can fly we can fly
Up, up and away
My beautiful, my beautiful balloon
Balloon…
Up, up, and away….
Great idea.
Thank you lux, I did it in Marrakesh/Morocco but with Ciel d'Afrique 😉
who’s the model? can you tell me her name? thx