A visit to a local Costco store doesn't always go as planned.
While you may head into the sprawling store for some toilet paper and a couple of other items, you might leave with a shopping cart packed high above your line of vision.
For a B.C.-based creative video agency, the Costco effect has people buying most of what they own, if not everything they own, from the retail giant.
One Peak Creative, the agency behind the video tribute, showcases how easy it is to spend money in the mega-store through song. The video introduces a cheerful couple who move around the store singing about the seemingly endless variety of items to buy, with many of them in huge quantities.
"Where can you go to get a quick snack, and on the same bill get a kayak?" the song playfully asks.
"Costco, I really can't believe, I spent two grand when my wife sent me in for a block of cheese."
Vancouver-born Glen Jackson, One Peak Creative co-owner, tells Vancouver Is Awesome that the team had the idea for the Costco video on a Monday night and wrote the song, recorded it, and planned the video the following day. By Wednesday, the motivated crew had shot, edited, and released the video.
"We like to do things with tight deadlines to push ourselves and see what's possible with short windows of time," he explains.
The team always joked around about how much they love Costco and someone said they should write a song about it, adds Jackson. "So it started as a bit of a joke and turned into something that's blown up!"
At the time of this writing, the video has just under 400,000 views on Instagram.
Creating videos during the coronavirus pandemic
Since all of their work was called off due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Jackson and his wife Megs Jackson started an 'ad a day challenge' to keep their creative juices flowing. Along with business partner Conair Fair, they own One Peak creative.
While he says creating videos over the pandemic has been a "huge learning curve," Jackson notes that "learning to shoot using ourselves as talent" freed up the crew to be "extremely agile, creating videos in 24 hours from start to release."
The pandemic has also inspired them to create a green screen studio and learn 3d software. "Since it can be a challenge to travel or get people together in the same place, this technology will allow us to create the environments we're shooting in."
In May 2020, the creative trio got a shout-out from beloved Vancouver actor Ryan Reynolds for an advertisement they crafted for his gin company, Aviation Gin.
Reynolds commented that he didn't know whether to hire or kidnap the creative couple featured in the video, while his wife, Blake Lively, remarked, "Couple Goals."
Since the Aviation Gin commercial was released, the agency has hired three employees: Séana Melia, Carson Burke and Caleb Zarn.
