This Striking Home Improvement Ad Features the Craziest Treehouse in the World

This is some classic BETC stuff right here. For DIY store Leroy Merlin—remember when they were just called home improvement retailers?—the Paris agency presents “A Life to Build.”

The kaleidoscopic work follows the 2017 film “Life’s Adventure,” which illustrated a young couple’s ups and downs in a house on choppy seas. “A Life to Build” is also a metaphor—on land this time, and scaled up. 

Way up. Early on, a small family’s home actually sprouts roots, darling as chicken feet! As the family grows, the house blossoms. So too does the magnificent tree in which it lives. 

“After making a house sail like a ship on the ocean, we gave ourselves an ambitious new challenge with Leroy Merlin,” says BETC executive creative director Olivier Apers. “We wanted to touch on another universal and emotional metaphor. What is more symbolic than a tree to express life and the essential place that our homes take in each of our lives?” 

Mythology aside, a BETC press release expresses its hope that this will be “the most poetic and philosophical DIY film you’ve ever seen.” We’ll leave that to you (though Hornbach’s often given us an existential run for the money).

Directed by Nicolaï Fuglsig, with DOP Phedon Papamichael and set design by Christopher Glass, we meet a family in a storm, taking shelter in a lonely, decrepit shack. As they settle in, shelter becomes home, rippling with a life of its own. 

Grandbrothers’ “Bloodflow” sets the pulse. As the family complexifies, we bear witness to that most private, most mysterious of odysseys—that of a home traveling through time, and not just space. Each year, each new need, brings something new to the picture. 

And while the metaphor often feels pat, like a story heard too many times, there are beautiful moments here: Gentle vertigo as the camera follows running children over the treehouse’s sensuous curves. The painted ship that sets sail, then bleeds into the walls. A roomful of books, cradled by branches. 

And of course, that last shot of a tree grown thick, its massive dream house nestled tight in its middle.

See some BTS photos below.

CREDITS

Brand: Leroy Merlin
Agency: BETCx BETC Digital

Brand Management 
Brand Director: ErwanSoquet
Communication Manager: Agathe Ruckebusch
Brand Campaign Project Manager: Maïté Boussemart

Agency Management
VP/Executive Creative Director: Olivier Apers
Creative: Moritz Maus
Creative: Sebastian Regfeldt
VP/Brand Director: Jean-Patrick Spitz
Business Director: Sofiane Ouaddah
Account Director: ColineLeroy
Project Manager: Florence Gury
Agency Producer: David Green
Music Creative Director: Christophe Caurret
Traffic: Christine Eon

Production
Director: Nicolaï Fuglsig
Cinematographer: Phaedon Papamichael
Set designer: Christopher Glass
Production Company: HENRY / MJZ
Executive Producer: Jean Ozannat
UK Producer: Tim Wild
French Producer: GaelleDelaporte