Quilted Northern parodies Starship with epic ‘We Quilt This City’ music video

Starship’s “We Built This City” may have a reputation as the worst song of the 1980s (source: Rolling Stone readers, 2011), but its over-the-top energy and style work nicely in Quilted Northern’s new campaign—a 60-second spot from Orchard that reimagines the 1985 track as “We Quilt This City.” The spot features three women—the “Quilted Queens,” sporting white puffy Quilted Northern coats—marching into a grocery store, which is more like a disco, where they sing, dance and extoll the product’s virtues. And they don’t just parody the song but the music video as well. Director Tajana Tokyo of Somesuch, with a background in dance and choreography, led the production, working with cinematographer Nikita Kuzmenko, choreographer Robia Milliner, costume designer Ntombi Moyo (who hand-quilted the white jackets) and others on the female-led team. Also read: Orchard triumphs over turbulent year Orchard built out the grocery store on a sound stage in Romania, “where all the lighting got to be practically done and rhythmically timed to the song and action,” said Christine Taffe, copywriter at Orchard. “The whole supermarket was built in a couple of days, and every corner of the supermarket was used.” The city skyline background from the Starship video was recreated with toilet paper rolls. “The crew made it at least five times bigger than we expected; they used approximately 6,000 rolls to build it,” said Taffe. (All rolls were donated to local non-profits in Bucharest.) Along with the main spot, social assets include short videos, shot in a BTS style, that capture the Quilted Queens rehearsing. “The social shoot used a lighter crew than our sound stage, but it was still treated with the same rigor by our director,” said Taffe. “It was unique and necessary to have social elevated to the same importance as any other film asset.” “‘We Build This City’ is an ’80s novelty classic,” said David Kolbusz, chief creative officer at Orchard. “We wanted to pay a loving homage to the video while landing our core message about quilted softness. We treated the performances as seriously as Starship themselves did.” The insight behind the campaign is that when women find a product they love, they want to tell others about it and help make their lives better, too. Quilted Northern has dubbed its target consumer “Trish”—a woman who is looking for quality and relies on product reviews and people in her life to recommend something so she can have confidence in what she is purchasing. More Creativity coverage from Ad Age: Sign up for our daily Creativity newsletter to see the best stories of the day.

Quilted Northern parodies Starship with epic ‘We Quilt This City’ music video

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