Brand experience Copy

A filmmaker’s eye, a brand’s voice

Brand experience Copy

A filmmaker’s eye, a brand’s voice

Brand experience Copy

A filmmaker’s eye, a brand’s voice

The lesson of the horizon

John Ford once taught Steven Spielberg one of the simplest yet deepest lessons in directing. He asked him to look at several paintings of Western landscapes and notice where the horizon was placed. “Sometimes it’s at the top, sometimes at the bottom, but never in the middle,” the young Spielberg answered. Ford explained that this is how an image tells a story. When the horizon is centered, the image becomes flat. That lesson wasn’t really about technique—it was about intention. About how a simple resource available to everyone—the camera’s point of view—has the power to change an entire story.

That way of looking is still valuable today, even outside of cinema. In communication, direction also means deciding where you’re looking from and what you leave out of frame. Every brand has its own horizon, and finding it is what gives coherence to everything it communicates.

Moments that hold a story together

There are moments in film history that stay etched in your mind: the shower scene in Psycho, the spinning top in Inception, Jack Nicholson’s face through the door in The Shining, the bone thrown by the ape in 2001: A Space Odyssey… Scenes that distill all the narrative tension of a film into a few seconds. But they only work because everything around them prepares us for that moment. If one part fails, the story loses strength.

The same happens with brands. A campaign, a post, or a spot can shine on its own, but if it doesn’t fit within a larger narrative built from the rest of the brand elements, the whole weakens. Brands, like films, are remembered for the moments that move you—but they endure thanks to the coherence that ties those moments together.

Not every story is told the same way

There isn’t just one way to tell a story. Some brands need to speak with rhythm; others communicate best through silence. What matters is how it’s told, not how much. In film, a shot can last minutes or just a blink, but it always has intention. The same goes for communication—each brand has its own tempo and its own way of stirring emotion.

Direction is about knowing when to show, when to leave space, and when to let the audience complete the story. Not every brand needs a grand narrative—some are stronger when they simply suggest. You don’t always need to show the product or describe the service for people to understand what you’re talking about. Because when the story is well built, the brand is recognized without being named.

Some campaigns have mastered this beautifully. Lacoste’s Timeless turns a brief encounter on a train into a love story that travels through decades to show that elegance never goes out of style. John Lewis’s The man on the moon shows how a simple gesture can connect people through empathy and small details. And Audi’s Duel transforms rivalry into a visual choreography that keeps your attention and conveys precision, control, and character—without ever showing the product. Three different approaches, one same principle: a brand truly connects when it finds the tone that makes its story unmistakable.

The Small* perspective

Every brand has its own story—and at Small*, our job is to give it shape so it can be seen, understood, and remembered. We look for balance, rhythm, and emotion—just like a filmmaker behind the camera.

Thinking this way also changes how communication works in B2B environments, where a brand doesn’t show up in just one place, but in many. Our role is to help build that recognizable atmosphere so that everything aligns with the same story and the experience stays consistent, even across different audiences and contexts.

Because when every piece breathes the same air, the brand is recognized before it’s even named. And that’s exactly where we aim to be.