Here’s a Shoot You Wish You Attended

There’s always that one shoot or work party that’s always referenced with a knowing smile, raised eyebrows and a shake of the head, aka the you-had-to-be-there look. Well, for McCann NY creative directors Sean Bryan and Tom Murphy and music producer Mike Boris, the music video shoot for Kyle Andrews‘ “You Always Make Me Smile” was just that.

Andrews’ song is the centerpiece of the international “Stay You” campaign for Holiday Inn. In the video, more than 4000 BYU students set an unofficial world record for the world’s largest water balloon fight. More than 120,000 water balloons were flung.

There were two twists to the shoot. First, McCann NY and Holiday Inn formed a record label, StayU Music, to produce, distribute, promote and share revenue from the song. McCann is also partnering with Kyle Andrews on the deal.

Second, because the budget for the music video was “probably less than the food-service budget for a typical music video,” Bryan and Murphy met with the students from the BYU AdLab to hear some of their ideas. The water balloon fight was already scheduled as a summer student activity so they decided to shoot the spot in the middle of it.

Yeah, the song is as poppy as they get, but it would have been fun to aim water balloons at Andrews’ Justin-Beiber-wanna-be face.

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