Cambria - The Legend of Cambria
Brand Story | Copywriting
Problem
Located right here in Minnesota, Cambria U.S.A. is a supplier of high-end, quartz countertops. But despite their unparalleled success in regional markets, Cambria had yet to become a nationally recognized brand-name.
Solution
Deepen and enrich their brand mythology and design inspirations, creating the ability to employ more narrative storytelling to connect audiences to Cambria's luxury brand.
Result
A nuanced, episodic brand story which served as the foundation for the Legend of Cambria, an ambitious 40-minute film directed by the talented Alexei Tylevich, the first trailer of which debuted during the 2018 Oscars on ABC.
Process / Notes
Meeting Monmouth
To date, no experience in my career has come close to the time, effort, and energy placed into the Cambria world-building project. Over three years, which included a tech scout trip to Wales, I was a creative lead on the team that expanded and enriched the Cambria mythology.
This involved spending a great deal of time researching both the history of Wales and Geoffry's magnum opus –the Historia Regum Britanniae, a pseudohistory of the British Isles which, amongst other things, was (conveniently) used to legitimize the ruling class who held power at the time it was written.
Camber and the Red Dragon
Camber, as Geoffry established, was the legendary first king of Wales, while his brothers were the first to rule over Alba (Scotland) and Logres (England).
Staying as true to this history as possible, we wove a story within this story, one that echoed the ambitious and aspirations of the Cambria brand, including Y Ddraig Goch, the mythical red dragon which appears on the Welsh national flag and which served as inspiration for Cambria's logo.
Diolch yn fawr
Even though we almost died at least twice (shhhh...don't tell my wife), traversing Wales with the client while working to further infuse the richness of Welsh history and culture into the Cambria brand was an exceptional experience.
As is normal with projects of this size and scope and timeline, the work for this project was often extremely grueling. But time heals most wounds, and I'm a better creative for having helped tell this story.
It's a story of which I fondly remember finally "cracking," but in a way that left me worried that I'd bent history a bit too much over the horn of the anvil. So I'm forever grateful to Bill Watkins, Minister of Culture at MN's own Merlin Rest Tavern, who I contacted for a gut-check to ensure we hadn't taken too many liberties with our source material.
Bill replied to me in rather epic fashion, "Well Geoffry of Monmouth made the whole bloody thing up. So why can't you?"