LaDeals Part 2: Behind the scenes

By LaDiff's Graphic Designer & Marketing Liaison,
Juliette Heydenrych


You might be wondering, what to baby chicks have to do with furniture? Well, there are some similarities. In Part 1, I explained the raison d'être for LaDeals: Good design should be available for everybody.

With spring in the air, we decided it was the perfect time to roll out LaDeals. You know all that sexy furniture I mentioned in Part 1 which converted me away from the big blue & yellow box? Well, now it has a name.

Enter Elevation.

Elevation brilliantly branded LaDeals and came up with the idea for the television promotion. It involved about a hundred baby chicks and some bright yellow tags.

During the early deliberations of the LaDeals category, we tossed around names like BrightBuys, SoLos and a personal favorite… Wowsers. Sadly, Wowsers didn’t make the final cut, but LaDeals did. The next steps would be making sure our LaDeals would be bright and visible throughout the store.

Branded with bright yellow tags, LaDeals hit us with a little spring fever. Our heads full of baby birds saying “cheep! cheep!”, Elevation came up with our latest Television ad.

The ad opens on the white limbo of a studio. We see a collection of LaDeals pieces. All over the furniture and floor are dozens of fluffy baby chicks. Andy, the voice of LaDiff, speaks the voiceover.

“…some of our staff worried that the name ‘LaDeals’ wasn’t quite enough to convey exactly how low the prices are. SO we’ve covered some of our many LaDeals with these baby chicks in hopes that you’ll remember one important fact. Our LaDeals are really, really…”

Cut to an extreme close up of a chick.

“…tagged in yellow”.

The real challenge with this production was purely logistical. After all, we’re in furniture. Where are we going to get a clutch of baby chicks? (Clutch is the official term referring to a group of chicks.) What would happen to them post-production?

As it turns out, you can’t just write up an ad with a group of animals in it and produce the thing without at least a few hoops to jump through first. First and foremost, the ad needs to get approval from the Humane Society.

The Humane Society needed to make certain that the animals would be taken care of before, during and after production. They needed to know where the chicks were coming from, how they were going to be cared for and that they would go to a humane home after all was said and done. They can even designate a representative to be present during production to ensure the welfare of all the critters involved.

Our baby chicks were acquired from a local poultry farmer, and were just 3 days old on the day of filming (it’s amazing how fast they grow)! By the end of the day, these fluffy little peeps were already starting to turn a light brown shade, developing the first tips of feathers on their wings- right before our eyes.

Chicks not on camera snuggled together under a heat lamp- kept at a steady 90 degrees (critical to keep them warm until they start developing head-feathers). The rest of the chicks enjoyed the run of the studio- well, part of it. We created a miniature great-wall surrounding the filming area to prevent chicken run-aways. Inside the barrier, chicks hopped around as we filmed them dozing on sofas, chirping on chairs and pooping- yes pooping- on everything.

We kept the camera rolling as we hustled about cleaning up after the flock. Baby chicks might be small, but they, like all birds, have a seemingly endless supply of poop, which they will happily provide at any given time of day.

Luckily it was a short day. The chicks were only put to work for a few short hours, and by lunchtime we had collected enough footage to take into the editing stages and cut together.

Video is a medium that is incredibly time consuming- especially with regarding to setting up the shots, making sure the lighting is right and adjusting the camera angles. Expecting an extremely long day, I was pleasantly surprised to call it a wrap. We couldn’t have done it without the suspiciously well-developed acting skills of all these baby chicks. One in particular- named Diva by the Princess of LaDiff Lucy Thornton- stole the show flapping her (or his) bright yellow fluff, cheeping on cue and posing coyly in front a LaDeals tag.

“I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille,” she seemed to say.

Of course, no animals were harmed during the making of this ad. We hope our fluffy little actors enjoy their early retirement from the stage in their new home. They were donated to a local farmer where they will spend their days on a local Virginia farm, enjoying the view and cheeping to their hearts content.

After sifting through a few hours worth of completely adorable footage, I was finally able to pare it down to the highlights and create a little behind the scenes video of the making-of our ad with Elevation. Enjoy!