An insight into how we're pivoting towards a more purposeful future through our work, clients and our definition of success. (Photo credit: James Dartnall)
As we approach our ten year anniversary HERE AT PINK BANANA studios, we are rightly proud of the glossy, beautiful and creative TV commercials, digital ads, campaigns and documentaries we have made. BUT also humbled by our collection of annual passion projects we have committed to as a team and a business. Documentaries that tell the true stories of incredible people and raise awareness of causes we believe are important. Daughters, A Life’s Work, Mahout and more, are all self-funded passion projects we made just for the love of it!
Our COVID reflection time got us rethinking where we should focus the majority of the team’s filmmaking talents. Our annual passion projects will continue and the hope is to begin to commercialise this part of our culture here at PB. In the more immediate future we recognise that our approach to working with brands needs to be more purposeful.
The brand-focused work we have done - and continue to do - for businesses like HelloFresh and Bumble Group, for example, has always been aligned with purpose. HelloFresh positively impact the eating habits of millions by helping them cook with fresher ingredients and healthier meal planning.
With Badoo we worked with them to step out and cast more diverse, real and body positive influencers more representative of Badoo users, driving more acceptance within the otherwise vapid dating world.
So, we remain rightly proud of this work, these continued partnerships and others like Belmond and FaceGym. However the truth is we are challenging ourselves to have a more positive impact through our commercial work.
We have always been a people-first business. That's one of the key threads running through the decade of memories in the studio since our launch. Increasingly we feel it's not enough. Aligned with the mantra of organisations like BCorp - people and purpose before profit - as a team we have resolved that it is time to do more work for brands who are doing great things in the world. Some of these are challenger brands, taking on industry leaders with solutions, products and services that reduce their carbon footprint, eliminate single-use plastic, and put sustainability top of the agenda. Similarly we want to work with the biggest brands in the world who recognise their responsibility to do more socially to help the human race progress both culturally and inclusively.
Our promise is that we will be even more selective with the brands we want to work with. This isn't about virtue signalling, or being elitist or arrogant. We remain humble but with a laser-like precision and clarity of focus: being honest with ourselves about what fulfils us to the core.
PINKBANANA studios remain (relatively) small and nimble, hyper-productive and scalable. Each piece of work is carefully crafted by our core team, supported by our trusted network of specialist crews. As we come out of the pandemic and continue to progress, our promise to ourselves, and to you, is that we will challenge you: both creatively and in terms of your purpose.
We do our best work when we are the creative partner for brands we admire. Our team are inspired to push the boundaries when the ethos of our clients is aligned with our purpose, individually and collectively. So as we pivot with a clear intention, tweak the tails of the giants and seek to find the challenger brands shaping a better tomorrow, we may sometimes appear to be provocative in these choices. We aren't going to be everyone's cup of tea with this pivot and these promises. But we are trying to do this for the future of every
Our goal is to be the most ethical, purpose and people-led production company in the world. That's what you get from the PINKBANANAs.
We are convinced that this mission will take us from good to great, and we can take steps in that journey together. If our fresh and authentic approach resonates with you then drop me an email to james@pinkbananastudios.com and we can do great things together.
