BigFlo & Oli
A Tour of Toulouse
France · 2024
Toulouse, told by the two brothers who grew up in it. BigFlo & Oli wrote an original song about their city, and GetYourGuide turned the places in it into a film and a tour fans could win.
Production
Billion Dollar Boy
Film directed by Clément Lefer and Raphaël Botton
Market
France
Launched Jul. '24
Shot in Toulouse, France, May '24
Deliverables
60″ hero film, 30″ and 15″ educational spots, two 15″ trailers, 10″ landing-page loop, campaign stills
Channels
TV (linear and connected), online video and display, YouTube and social, landing page, PR
My role
Senior Art Director, client side, from storyboards to final stills. I worked with Billion Dollar Boy as lead agency, alongside GetYourGuide's storytelling lead and brand team. One shoot had to feed the whole funnel: educational TV spots for awareness, trailers for consideration, and a hero film that sent people to the tour.
Story and look
Reviewed the boards and scripts for every asset: the 60″ film, the 30″ and 15″ educational spots, two 15″ trailers and a 10″ loop.
Kept brand and product up front in each cut: the logo in the first five seconds, and the app on screen before the spot ends.
Brought GetYourGuide's guiding red into wardrobe and props, styled around the duo's own Visionnaire collection. Oli's red sweater became the brand's anchor in almost every frame.
Built to explain
Lead the phone-screen brief: which experiences to scroll through, where each scroll lands, and how every phone shot had to work with or without the tap.
Planned the phone moments across the 60″ film, the trailer and both educational spots, shot at two locations and against a neutral wall of Toulouse brick.
On set in Toulouse, May 2024
The only person from GetYourGuide on set. Led client-side review and approvals across a two-day shoot: day one with the cast of travelers, day two with BigFlo & Oli.
Worked with Billion Dollar Boy's creative lead as brand guardian, so every scene read as GetYourGuide without slowing the crew down.
Called our Creative Director every night with an update, so the brand team could follow the shoot day by day without being there.
We had six hours with the talent and seven locations, in the rain. We shot through it.
Briefed the stills with photographer Greg Funnell, working alongside the film crew.
Imagery and post-production
Selected the campaign imagery: 12 frames with BigFlo & Oli, the agreed limit for talent images, and 19 without them, shared across every channel.
Recommended the homepage banner: the jazz session in the auditorium, because music was the stronger story. Separate crops for desktop and app.
Wrote the retouching notes: warmer, sunnier light, more texture in the red brick, the guiding red pushed into Oli's sweater and the drummer's sticks, logos and clutter removed, and space cleared for type.
Assigned every select to a placement: landing-page banner, guide intro, five itinerary photos, homepage banner and PR.
Gave feedback on cut, flow and grade across edit rounds.
The song carries the story. The system around it makes sure people know what to book.
The film
The hero film, 60 seconds (here shown with English subtitles just for my portfolio). It opens on the rhythm of the Pink City, with BigFlo & Oli's own track setting the pace: "Bienvenue à Toulouse." A traveler opens their tour in the app, and the screen becomes the next location. The duo walk onto the pitch at the Stadium de Toulouse like a home team, then the camera flies out over the city. Chocolatines at Café Visionnaire, the duo's own café and concept store. The windows of Toulouse cut to the window of the Capitole. Inside the Auditorium Saint-Pierre-des-Cuisines, where BigFlo played his first concert at 12, a jazz quintet is warming up when the group walks in. A push into the bell of a trumpet comes out through the arches of the Pont Neuf, onto the banks of the Garonne. The film ends on booking the tour on a phone.
Shot with Steadicam, drone, handheld and tripod. Director and DoP Clément Lefer cut between places with burst-photo sequences, slow-shutter streets and crash zooms. The transitions follow the beat of the song.
Cutdown versions
30″ and 15″ educational: Made for TV, connected TV and display. Awareness. The brand voice explains the platform first: "Avec GetYourGuide, il y a plus de 100 000 choses à faire" ("With GetYourGuide, there are over 100,000 things to do"), including an exclusive tour of Toulouse with local legends BigFlo & Oli. The phone shows the experiences, and the duo shout "Toulouse!" to camera.
The idea
The brief was to build GetYourGuide's brand in France and show travelers an experience they couldn't get anywhere else.
The answer was to hand Toulouse to the people who know it from the inside. BigFlo & Oli are brothers who grew up there. They went to school opposite the Basilica of Saint-Sernin, played their first concerts with the conservatory orchestra at the auditorium, and went on to sell out the city's stadium four times. GetYourGuide's research backed the bet: 73% of French travelers choose a destination based on the experiences it offers or on their passions, and 59% want to explore with a local guide who loves their area.
They didn't play tour guides. They wrote the route as a song. Every lyric is a real place: their first concert hall, the stress backstage, the café where one of them got dumped and a tourist consoled him. The song became the soundtrack, the script and the itinerary.
It was the first Originals by GetYourGuide experience in France, under the campaign line "legendary guides for legendary destinations." What you watch is what the winners got.
Campaign stills
Photography by Greg Funnell
One shoot fed the whole launch. The stills carried the press release, the landing page, the homepage and GetYourGuide's social channels, alongside the film.
Capitole
The press "save the date" image. BigFlo & Oli in front of the Capitole, with the guiding red on Oli's sweater and shoe stripes.
The jazz session
The homepage banner. A jazz quintet in the auditorium where BigFlo played his first concert.
Streets of Toulouse
The duo lead the group down a narrow street of red brick, the walking tour as it really happens.
At the piano
The group gathers around a grand piano on the auditorium stage.
Stadium de Toulouse
On the pitch of a stadium the brothers have filled four times, built for more than 33,000 people.
The group
A group of travelers laughs with BigFlo & Oli on Place du Capitole in Toulouse.
Beyond the film
The tour was an Originals by GetYourGuide experience, and the only way in was to win a place. The campaign drove fans to enter.
The song. BigFlo & Oli's track about Toulouse went live with the experience page on 1 July 2024.
The contest. Open from 2 July to 18 August 2024 on GetYourGuide's site, for 20 places. The first tour ran on 30 August, led by Toulouse creator @thewingzer, a close friend of the duo, and ended with a private meeting with BigFlo & Oli. A second date followed at the end of the year.
The route. Six stops: Place du Capitole, the Basilica of Saint-Sernin, the Auditorium Saint-Pierre-des-Cuisines, the banks of the Garonne, the Stadium de Toulouse and Café Visionnaire.
Press partnerships. Time Out ran the duo's ten-stop guide to Toulouse, from Café Visionnaire to the Bikini concert hall.
Impact and press
Part of GetYourGuide's local talent campaigns. In 2024, it took GetYourGuide's branded search share of voice in France to an all-time high.
Featured in Time Out, 20 Minutes, Le Parisien, Creapills and Voyage Pulse.
Behind the scenes
On set in Toulouse, May 2024. Two days, seven locations and a rain forecast for both. I was GetYourGuide's only person on set, there to monitor, frame and give direction for film and stills.
In the stadium preparing for the scene.
Checking homepage banner options during the shoot.
Crew on location, filming phone demos.
Credits
All campaign work shown was created for GetYourGuide and is © GetYourGuide. Shown here as a record of my role. Rights holders: if you’d like anything changed or removed, please email theo@theoklingenberg.com and I’ll act promptly.
Creative Director
Danna Blum
Senior Art Director
Theo Klingenberg
Senior Creative Operations Manager
Krete Päeske
Creative Storytelling Lead
Adam Smith
Agency: Billion Dollar Boy
Creative Lead: Claude Coleman
Senior Creative: Mathilde Hauser
Production Director: Sasha Dunn
Executive Producer: Lindsay Moyes
Senior Account Director: Maxime Rozencwajg
Account Director: Reka Sardy Senior
Account Manager: Alice Wang
Producer: Jodie Yates
Assistant Producer: Fanny Magot
Film Directors: Clément Lefer, Raphaël Botton Director of Photography: Clément Lefer
1st AD: Ronnie Franco
2nd AD: Clémentine Dutheil
1st AC: Simi Beniamino
2nd AC: Lucas de Sá
Gaffer: Clément Beauvieux
Spark: Max Moret
Steadicam: Corentin Agaise
Drone: Lancelot Tintignies, ELTI Production
Sound: Jean-Charles Kraimps
Locations and fixers: Thomas Loiseau, Marlène Célié
Production Assistant: Juliette Toullec
Runners: Maxime Perboire, Marvin Kowski
Make-up: Mégane Brugière
Stylist: Anne-Sophie Da Fonseca
Colourist: Florian Martiny, Keep Grading
Stills Greg Funnell Assistants: Oscar Yoosefinejad, Victor Gautier
Music Lyrics, composition and music: BigFlo & Oli
Artists' management Pauline Neghza, Philippe Sitbon, Nicolas Raymond
Further reading