A cinematic employer-branding series that portrays the people behind a grand hotel

Baur au Lac

Baur au Lac

Baur au Lac is one of Zurich’s most storied luxury hotels, and Collective Agency has supported the house in marketing for years. For an employer branding series we were asked to portray the hotel on film: the first five video portraits of the people and the unusual range of professions inside it. The work makes the magic of the place visible while keeping the narration as unstaged as possible.

Client

Baur au Lac

Services

Videography / Photography | Brand Strategy

Title card of the Working at Baur au Lac film series.
Collective Agency portrays the professions inside the Baur au Lac.
Collective Agency captures everyday service without staging it.

Good employer branding lives on authenticity. The strongest employer brands are not built through staging they are built by making qualities that already exist visible.

Good employer branding lives on authenticity. The strongest employer brands are not built through staging they are built by making qualities that already exist visible.

The films were made primarily for social media, but the demand on cinematography was uncompromising. The visual language works with carefully composed, often symmetrical frames, subtle motion blur and a deliberately slowed camera that lends everyday hotel work an almost cinematic gravitas. Inspired by the precision and formal language of Wes Anderson, the result sits between editorial, cinema and documentary proximity. Casting mattered as much as the camera: together with the HR team we looked for people who represent their role credibly and with genuine enthusiasm, because strong portraits are made long before anyone starts filming. Out of numerous unscripted interviews came short portraits that put character and profession, not the brand, in the foreground.

Collective Agency shoots the portrait series on location at the Baur au Lac.
Collective Agency composes symmetrical frames with subtle motion blur.