King Power International Group

End client: King Power International Group​
Commissioning agency: Storyteller Bangkok
Campaign: Thailand smiles with you (Covid-19)

With an annual revenue of over $3 billion, King Power is Thailand’s leading operator of airport duty-free stores. Their `Thailand smiles with you’ campaign promotes international travel and encourages tourism back into the country and incorporates digital, print, football sponsorship and TV/cinema advertising. KingPower commissioned Storyteller Bangkok to produce the adverts, who then selected Slate and Mortar to produce all UK based content. The creative objective was for a series of TV adverts that were designed to offer an uplifting message that referenced the Covid-19 crisis but offered a (literal) light at the end of the tunnel. The aim was to put out a feel-good factor and share the message that Thailand was there with you through these difficult times.

As an international campaign, filming for the project was to take place primarily in Thailand with the Thai-based creative agency Storyteller Bangkok, however, each advert also required UK based footage that would sit cohesively against the Thai-shot footage. Slate and Mortar’s role was to work alongside and liaise directly with Storyteller Bangkok, understand their filming requirements and ensure all UK based production was produced on time, on budget and with incredibly high production values.

Working collaboratively with an agency that was based on the other side of the world provided unique challenges; the creative team at Storyteller Bangkok was six hours ahead of us (with some language barriers), so it meant that we had to be extremely structured and organised in our meetings and communications, and offer a high level of flexibility so that all contributors were available. To plan all filming logistics and to interpret Storyteller Bangkok’s creative approach, and to ensure that the UK-shot footage matched all pre-existing Thai-shot footage (both subjectively and technically), Slate and Mortar’s Head of Creative and their Head of Production had to regularly liaise with the following people; King Power International Group representatives, Storyteller Bangkok’s representatives, Leicester City Football Club representatives, Storyteller Bangkok’s subcontracted Film Director and their subcontracted Director of Photography. Topics of discussion included matching lighting style, establishing a similar mood/emotion with the direction, matching framing and composition, as well as selecting equipment that were as close to those used by the Thai production crew.

We faced stringent filming conditions, due to working with a Premier League Football player during Covid-19 restrictions, so contact with the player was kept to an absolute minimum. Our biggest challenge, however, was that we were limited to just one hour of filming time with our Premier League footballer. Therefore, we had to work incredibly close with the Storyteller Bangkok creative team to come up with a working solution that would allow for the content and context of the campaign to still remain effective. To that end, storyboards were sent back and forth between agencies to reduce variables and ensure clarity on what would be filmed on the day of production.

Slate and Mortar Birmingham have since collaborated with Storyteller Bangkok on two more cinema and TV adverts in 2021, and look forward to working with them again in the future.