Inside Genesis Motor America’s brand film about Marilyn Monroe

Maggie Gyllenhaal’s new short film, Flesh Impact, is set to premiere at the Venice Film Festival this September, and early headlines about the 17-minute project, which stars Dakota Johnson and Ellen Burstyn depicting Marilyn Monroe at different ages, make it seem like a buzzy look at the star the world can’t seem to get enough of.

It’s also something else: A brand film.

Genesis Motor America commissioned Gyllenhaal to create the short film about Monroe to coincide with the rollout of a new, yet-to-be revealed SUV, Amy Marentic, chief marketing officer for the company, told Marketing Brew. A key element of the new vehicle is the “unique” way passengers get in and out of it—something that spurred a brainstorm on how to market around iconic arrivals.

“You know the question… ‘If you could go to dinner with anybody, who would it be?’ That’s the conversation we were having,” Marentic said. “If anybody could get out of this vehicle, who would it be?”

AI also had a role in cementing the idea of the film, she said. “[Innocean] did an AI video of Marilyn Monroe stepping out of this vehicle, and it blew everybody’s mind,” she told us. “We all got goosebumps, and we started talking about it.”

From ideation to reality

Once the company landed on the idea of portraying Monroe, the team reached out to the owners of Monroe’s estate, Authentic Brands Group, to see if it was feasible, learning that whatever they made could coincide with celebrations around Monroe’s 100th birthday. After getting the approval of the estate, Genesis Motor America then worked on the right approach.

“I certainly didn’t want the world to think we were using Marilyn to sell a vehicle because it’s not our style,” Marentic said. “[It’s her] 100th birthday. So we said, ‘Is there something we could do to give her a gift?’”

The film itself, Marentic said, is designed to be that gift to the “incredibly smart” Monroe. “She wanted desperately to be a serious actress, and so the film is really giving her what she always wanted, which was a serious role,” she said.

While the company used AI in the brainstorm process, the company’s creative work is made using real people, and Marentic said it was important to the brand to use real people to create the film. The SUV will also feature in the film as part of the plot.

The company wanted to create something that was respectful to Monroe’s legacy with Johnson starring as a version of Monroe “at the height of her fame,” per the company’s release about the project, and Burstyn as a “version of Marilyn the world never got to see.” As part of that, the company wanted to work with a female director, Marentic said. They quickly landed on Gyllenhaal, who is not only a writer-director, but an experienced actor.

While Genesis Motor Americas shared ideas with Gyllenhaal, the script and the idea for the final film were hers alone.

“She had the idea of Ellen Burstyn playing Marilyn,” Marentic said, noting that Burstyn had met Monroe. “[Ellen] was phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal… She took time to talk to everybody on set, tell us stories of Marilyn.”

Prestige approach

Investing in an artistic approach to a branded short film using top-tier talent isn’t something most brands will do, and Marentic, who has previously worked at brands including Ford, said she couldn’t imagine doing this in previous roles. That said, Genesis’s positioning as a luxury car brand, along with executive commitment to artistic endeavors, made the effort more possible.

“Our executive chair is a patron of the arts,” Marentic said, noting that the company has partnerships with museums like the LACMA in Los Angeles, the Met and Whitney in New York, and the Tate in London. “The brand is very passionate about the arts…[It’s] very much a part of our DNA.”

There’s growing interest in branded entertainment in recent years, which is one of the reasons CMOs are showing up to film festivals like Sundance and Tribeca. Zach Blume, co-founder of creative shop Portal A, told Marketing Brew in an email that Genesis’s approach with this film is “very rare, but not unheard of.” (Portal A has previously created work for Lenovo that was featured in Tribeca X, the brand-focused track of the Tribeca Film Festival.)

“Brands would have to be patient to release the films publicly [only] after the festival circuit,” Blume said. “Patience is not always a brand’s greatest virtue.”

Following the premiere in Venice, where Burstyn will also receive a lifetime achievement award, Flesh Impact will continue a festival run before an online premiere. Aside from the film, the company will have a traditional marketing campaign to promote the new vehicle.

“Many people would look at the film and say, ‘What is the ROI of the film?’ but we’re looking at it from a bigger perspective,” Marentic said. “There are many different areas of the funnel. There are the rational areas of the funnel…We will do all of that. We will have our TV commercial. We will do our digital marketing campaign. But this vehicle is so incredibly special… It deserved a moment that was very different and very special, and that’s what this film is.”