Windex- The Story of Lucy

Posted August 27, 2017
Share To
 
 

Windex, (the blue stuff you use to clean glass) has carried out a bold and very successful experiment in online video.

Usuall, windex ads talk about, well, clean glass. But this video doesn't even show a windex bottle.  Or a window (hardly) for that matter.

Entitled The Story of Lucy, it's a 3-minute video that tells the story of a father trying to balance his life's work at sea with his trying to raise his daughter.

In the 3 minutes, we are carried from her birth to her marriage to her becoming an astronomer to her having her first child. That's a lot in 3 minutes, but it works.

It's a real tear jerker. 

Watch it here.

What makes this intersting is that it is a very good use of video online.  It has all the elements of a great story-telling:  characters, and arc of story and a conclusion.

It also has a soundtrack by  13-year-old “America’s Got Talent” winner Grace VanderWaal.

The success of the ad — which had been viewed more than5.9 million times on Facebook, and another 2.2 million times on YouTube by Friday morning — is at least partly attributable to it's subtlety. There isn't a bottle of Windex visible in the entire ad; only clean windows and mirrors.

 

 


Recent Posts

The world of television before cable had been limited to 3 networks and a handful of local TV stations. But the advent of cable meant that suddenly there were 60, 70 soon to be 100 or more new channels. And all of those channels needed content. But where were they going to get it from? A huge market for content had just opened up.


Q: What do TV news and Netflix have in common? A: They both appear on the same screen. They both tell stories.


This morning, I went out early to buy my copy of the weekend FT — a great newspaper, by the way. I was a bit surprised to see that my regular newsstand, on 6th Avenue and 55th Street, had exactly 3 newspapers for sale — one copy of Baron’s and two copies of The New York Post. That was it. No FT, no NY Times, no Washington Post, no… nothing.


Share Page on:

Twitter