Everybody sits: inside Look’s global campaign for Herman Miller

“Millions of people sit in a Herman Miller chair. Millions of people love their Herman Miller chair. Why doesn’t everybody sit in a Herman Miller chair?” Those three lines opened the brief that Herman Miller sent to a small set of agencies with its request for proposals, Senior Marketing Director Jenelle Kelsch tells us. Look sent back a question of its own, ‘What’s up with everyone who doesn’t sit in a Herman Miller chair?’ and with it the prompt for the campaign: if all those everybodies understood what sitting in a Herman Miller chair can add to life, they would add one to their own life. The resulting global campaign by the London, New York and Los Angeles-based creative agency moves the subject from the chair to the act of sitting, revolving around the line: ‘Sit Your Best.’ “Herman Miller’s design philosophy is essentially to put people first. Their chairs are created to adapt to you, not the other way around,” Chief Creative Officer Suzy Shaheen explains. “So, we focused on the humanity, the personality and the individuality of the ‘sitters’ – showing the endless range of ways people lounge, lean, careen and still fit comfortably in their Herman Miller chairs. That led to some quirky casting, posing and choreography you wouldn’t expect from an office seating company.” Kelsch points back to the video that introduced Herman Miller’s Equa chair in 1984. Once you have seen it, Kelsch notes, “you’ll understand that we don’t create straightforward product campaigns.” The campaign’s manifesto makes its claim plainly: that sitting is done best on a chair ‘engineered for your health.’ “The thing about Herman Miller designs is that they are so advanced, they’re simple,” Shaheen continues. “That set the tone for our manifesto – Everybody sits (often over 7 hours a day!), so why not choose a chair that was designed to help you do it better? The mechanics of the chairs may be complex, but advantages are hit-you-over-the-head simple. We wanted to bring that simplicity and clarity to the campaign both in the copy and visuals.” Herman Miller’s ergonomic research sits behind how its chairs are engineered. “Designer Bill Stumpf spent decades studying the effects of sitting on the human body,” Kelsch explains, “everything from fatigue and cognition to back pain. He incorporated what he learned into our Ergon, Equa, Aeron and Embody chairs. He believed that people could be more creative if they weren’t distracted by physical discomfort and if poor posture didn’t inhibit blood circulation.” Kelsch offers Embody, designed by Stumpf with Jeff Weber, as an example of that research; when Stumpf died in 2006, Weber carried on, “giving the chair its function and form, building on Stumpf’s inspiration.”