In 2011, France’s premium pay television channel CANAL+ released “The Bear,” a promo for its Cinema offerings that just seemed to get everything right.

Following its release, “The Bear” would go on to become, at least by one account, the most awarded spot of 2012, making it not just emotionally but statistically a very challenging endeavor on which to follow up. How do you take success further than a spot that not only became a viral sensation but is mathematically proven to be the most successful promo of the year?

Well, if you’re CANAL+, and also France’s BETC, the creative agency behind “The Bear,” you start your 2014 follow-up with that diva of a bearskin rug by planning something completely different. So different in fact, that the viewer doesn’t see the bear at all. After all, what’s left to see? A spot that literally can’t be improved upon can only be evolved by one approach: Rather than letting the viewer BE the bear, BETC has let the viewer BECOME the bear.

“This is what I like about working in advertising now,” said Adrien Armanet, who directed the new interactive experience “Being the Bear” for BETC. “It’s not just about making a one-minute commercial.”

Rather, “Being the Bear” is about making dozens of one-minute commercials, each one a genre-specific riff on the same dramatic scene, which is ostensibly from the movie being shot in “The Bear.” On a dedicated website, two actors from that “Game of Thrones”-style film-within-a-promo, clad in Medieval garb, enact a death scene on the battlefield. The ingenious hook is, it is up to the person using the website to decide how they do so, to step into The Bear’s furry shoes and become the scene’s director.

Peering through a virtual camera at the set, you, playing The Bear (whose only visage occurs POV style, as his paw reaches up to operate the camera), may opt to “direct” the scene with a horror vibe, a comedy feel or even as a porno, among numerous other categories. If you’re using Google Chrome, you can even speak your choice into your computer’s microphone. The cast and crew will respond instantly, laboring to give you exactly what you want (lest you become irrational, which The Bear is prone to doing).

BETC creative director Olivier Apers said the goal of the experience was “to demonstrate the love of Canal+ for cinema” and what better way to do that than give the viewer a taste of what it actually is like to make cinema? That atmosphere so unique to a film set is lovingly etched into “Being the Bear” with exquisite touches like the green screens that pop back into vision when each scene is over, and an earnest, inquiring assistant director who waits patiently for you to select your genre of choice, then comments on how he thought the scene went after your selection has manifested.

Putting the focus on The People rather than The Bear “was a good idea,” said Armanet (who seems to have found a bit of a niche directing interactive bear spots), “[because] the interface is a human one. It’s not a technical thing.”

Creating that fluid, decidedly human experience was naturally no easy feat. In addition to writing and producing more than 20 different versions of the same scene, BETC had to design the interactive platform in a way that would encourage the user to engage with the scenes without skipping around.

“You have a mathematical problem, in fact,” said Armanet. “You have to think about when people are going to click and when they are going to not click, and what is going to happen if they don’t click. You have to think about all the possibilities that a viewer is going to do. It’s quite tricky”

Though the actor playing the assistant director seems to be improvising between each “take,” in reality he was more tightly scripted than he would have been on any traditional commercial shoot. Across the dozens of different transitional sequences that would ultimately be used to guide the user through the different spots, he was not able to deviate in any way from the plan, else throw off an intricate, shifting tower of elements supporting the whole online environment.

“All of the choices determine the next choice,” said Apers. “It won’t work if [the actor] says something not said before… it’s like a puzzle. Every piece is really important. Everything has to match together.”

But as complicated as the interactive spot was to create behind the scenes, the goal of making its front end completely accessible and personable was beautifully achieved. “Being the Bear” is fluid, fun to play with and frequently funny as hell. And that sense of humor, according to CANAL+ director of creative services Olivier Schaack, is ultimately what best represents his network’s brand.

“It’s really in CANAL+’s DNA to not be serious and to make fun of everything,” Schaack told Brief. “That DNA was created almost 30 years ago with cinema, football, sports… and in the middle of this there were shows that all were playing on humor. They really changed the landscape of French TV… discovered many, many huge talents who all work now in cinema as actors, directors, sometimes as both. Since the beginning, CANAL+ has played on this.”

“Being the Bear” CREDITS

Client: CANAL+
Agency: BETC & BETC Digital
Executive Creative Director: Stéphane Xiberras
Creative Director: Olivier Apers
Director: Adrien Armanet
Copywriter: Guillaume Rebbot
Digital Producer: Sandy Semelin
Production House: Iconoclast Interactive & Anonymous
Sound Production: Gum

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