Find the thing people recognise.
“I don’t know how to go out.” A real problem, hiding a second meaning. Sometimes the idea is already in the language.
See the double meaning become a film ↗︎Independent creative agency & production house
Athens, Greece
Make the ad
people bring up.
Ideas worth talking about.
From the first thought to the final cut.
01 / The work
Nothing here looks
like the last thing.
A man buried in sand. A €30 breathalyser. A job ad that became the campaign.
Go straight to all the work ↗︎Titles like YouTube videos. Sorry.All work ↗︎
CommercialBury him.
Bury him.
It’s for an app.
Recurring socialTikTok’s girliest format.
TikTok’s girliest format.
In camo.
Social filmWe faked a fight
We faked a fight
in the street.
Event activation€30.
€30.
That was the whole budget.
Work collectionNo budget.
No budget.
Still viral.
Launch campaignThis was supposed
This was supposed
to be a job ad.
01 / 06
Same curiosity.Different executions.
The full index
Work & field notes / 06
02 / How we think
The brief has the problem.
We bring the idea.
What makes someone
care enough to stay?
Give it an unexpected turn.
A familiar format gets interesting when something doesn’t belong. Like military equipment inside a “what’s in my bag” video.
See the format, recast ↗︎Let the idea pick the medium.
Sometimes it needs a film crew. Sometimes the job ad is the campaign. We work out where the idea belongs before deciding what to make.
See a hiring need become the launch ↗︎Keep the idea alive in the making.
The casting, the awkward pause, the cut before the reveal. Production decisions are creative decisions. We stay with the idea through the final delivery.
See how the reveal works ↗︎03 / What we can make together
01A campaign
A campaign
with something to say.
Creative concept, campaign direction and production. For the commercial you want people to remember after the media spend stops.
Talk about a campaign ↗︎02A brand worth
A brand worth
following.
Ongoing creative and social production. A recognisable point of view, repeatable formats and fresh reasons to keep watching.
Talk about ongoing creative ↗︎The network.
A studio that
changes shape.
Kurious works with a network of independent creatives, directors and production collaborators across Athens. We assemble around the idea rather than staffing it from whoever happens to be free.
The full index
Work & field notes
01Bury him. It’s for an app.MoodCommercial02TikTok’s girliest format. In camo.Military retailRecurring social03We faked a fight in the street.CharlieSocial film04€30. That was the whole budget.MoodEvent activation05No budget. Still viral.Charlie / Ergostasio / moreWork collection06This was supposed to be a job ad.MoodLaunch campaign
Bury him. It’s for an app.MoodCommercial02TikTok’s girliest format. In camo.Military retailRecurring social03We faked a fight in the street.CharlieSocial film04€30. That was the whole budget.MoodEvent activation05No budget. Still viral.Charlie / Ergostasio / moreWork collection06This was supposed to be a job ad.MoodLaunch campaignWork by our founder and collaborators, including projects developed at Mood. Brand context and individual credits belong with each story.
Social film / CharlieK / 03
We faked a fight
in the street.
The format already existed. What changed was the execution. The same video went viral four times in one day, then started appearing everywhere.
The brief
Charlie wanted to promote an event. We wanted a video that stopped the scroll before the viewer even realised they were watching an ad.
The thinking
There’s a strange pressure in marketing. For everything to be original. In reality, almost nothing is. Most formats already exist. Someone thought of them before you.
The point isn’t to copy the video. It’s to understand why the video works.
We had found an older format that, for a few seconds, made you think you were about to watch a fight. We weren’t interested in the fight. We were interested in why you didn’t scroll. We didn’t copy the idea. We copied the mechanism that made the idea work.
What we did
We used the same storytelling. Someone thinks they’re about to argue with a driver. They approach, visibly annoyed. The viewer waits for the fight to begin. Instead, they start giving the event details.
The bait was the fight. The switch was the ad.
The result
The video went viral four times in the same day. Once on our Instagram. Once on our TikTok. Once on Charlie’s TikTok. And once more through a news page, which reposted it and called it “aggressive marketing”.
But that was only the beginning. Soon afterwards, dozens of variations on the same format started appearing in Greece. Even big brands tried it.
The funny thing is that many of them copied the video. We hadn’t copied the video. We had copied the mechanism behind it. And that is usually the difference between a trend that gets repeated and a trend that works.
Watch the video — Charlie / TikTok ↗︎
Context
Charlie. Organic viral video at Varvakeios Market.
Credits
Story by Konstantinos Alexopoulos. Brand context: Charlie.