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Lollipop worked with GSD&M on the design and development of Shareacarol.com, the digital component of the 2011 holiday campaign for GSD&M client TJX brands – comprised of Marshalls, T.J.Maxx and HomeGoods. The campaign’s digital footprint encompassed fully functional experiences on a web site, Facebook and on iOS and Android devices. Users were able to enter any address, and via Google Street View receive a live action carol sung at an image of their front door complete with snow, twinkly lights and even a reindeer.
Partnering with Goodby, Silverstein and Partners, rehabstudio created a website for Chevy that allows users to go on a nostalgic drive through their past, jumping into one of six Chevrolet cars like the 57’ Bel-air, ’69 Stingray or the Camero – all shot by rehab exclusively for the campaign.
Using Facebook connect, the site identifies locations from the user’s profile and then leverages Google Street-view to generate a stop-frame drive past video.
The campaign also pulls in Facebook friends and displays them throughout the experience, which is the first of it’s kind. Users can takeaway a map showing their life journey which they can easily share on Facebook or with the friends featured in their ride.
All of the cars were shot on location in Detroit and then a bi-coastal b-roll shoot linked the experience together, the linking shots are chosen from country, suburban or urban to keep the narrative of the campaign.
Lollipop worked with Goodby, Silverstein & Partners on the development of a rich media campaign for Dickies workwear. The creative consisted of multiple page takeover executions on popular destinations such as ESPN and Sports Illustrated.
When a plumber jiggles the handle on a broken toilet, first the toilet, then the entire page begins to leak and spray water, resulting in a high pressure explosion that reveals water pipes behind the page. The banner continues to animate with the campaign’s ‘Life Hurts’ message followed by a focus on the short sleeve work shirt. The takeaway is that Dickies workwear can stand up to just about anything you throw at it. Check it out for yourself below.
Aarra Agency: Lollipop Client: Dickies Ad Agency: Goodby, Silverstein and Partners
Continuing their successful relationship with GSP, Lollipop was proud to develop Sprint’s Biz360 website that shows the benefits of having your business connected to Sprint. Lollipop developed the entire website, as well as edited and helped produce the videos on the site, which highlight three unique and successful businesses that currently use Sprint’s services. These super slow motion vignettes use interactive hotspots to detail the benefits of the program.
Additionally, prospective businesses can view all of the Sprint services and products, as well as view pricing and plans through a simple interface. For users on tablets and mobile devices, Lollipop also created an optimized version for whichever device you choose.
Aarra Agency: Lollipop Client: Sprint Ad Agency: Goodby, Silverstein and Partners
With the addition of Minivegas to our portfolio, Aarra takes another step out of the browser and into physical interactivity. Minivegas is an award-winning multidisciplinary studio — a powerhouse collective of live-action, VFX, and technological masters.
Minivegas were approached to concept station IDs for S4C, a Welsh based broadcaster. Given a brief by the client to create the IDs that were picture postcard scenes of Welsh life, Minivegas wanted to produce a set of IDs that could bring those scenes to life in real time. Taking it to the next level though was developing voice reactive imagery that would be entirely unique each time it screened.
In order to achieve this, Minivegas had to build a real time compositing engine from scratch. Using a total of 10 background plates, the broadcast television announcer can, in real time, affect the imagery within each scene. Elements within the images randomly move based on the volume and frequency of the announcer’s voice. All the idents stand on their own without voice input. But speech breathes life into the scenes.
The project took over a year to develop, from conception, R&D, live-action shoot, post, coding, and integration. This included writing video decoding, compositing, colour correction, etc and using open source libraries. There are about 50,000 lines of code in the final product.
Minivegas also built a box that behaves like a “digideck,” and installed it at the broadcaster’s office so that it can communicate with their scheduling system, switch audio feeds from a number of sources, and output synchronized digital video and audio using broadcast standard signals. The result are an infinite number of idents, all unique and all beautiful.
You can see Luc demoing the technology here as it’s running seamlessly on his laptop.
SilkTricky was going to bring in Michael Bay to help Doritos and Pepsi MAX Crash the Superbowl, but thought it would be more fun to just do it themselves.
Eat your heart out, Mike.
This explosive intro showcases SilkTricky’s double-barreled talent for live-action shooting and eye-clawing effects, complete with slow-mo, splintering glass, and some good ol’ in-your-face product placement.
To show off the creative power of the HP Designjet Print & Share, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners called on Transistor Studios’s extensive experience weaving reality with breathtaking 3D animation (check out their latest reel and you’ll see what we mean).
HP wanted to underscore the printer’s ability to help folks collaborate in real time from across the planet, so Transistor got global, hopping the pond to Prague for three days of shooting. They soaked up that ‘international look’ with footage of the cultural capital’s timeless architecture, and brought it back to Brooklyn for some multidimensional modeling.
Five busy weeks later Transistor delivered these intricate and visual stories exploring the printer’s unique collaborative capabilities. You’ll want to watch them each a couple times to catch all the nuance they packed into just a minute of video. We sure did.
Aarra partner Honest has redefined sticky media, and gotten some on their fingers in the process.
Working with Publics Modem, Honest produced and directed a series of short films for Fruit by the Foot, featuring everything from wildlife to a full cheerleading uniform handcrafted out of the fruity snack (the latter complete with pompoms).
To house the campaign, Honest also designed a new website top-to-bottom, including a custom typeface. The interactive experience keeps visitors clicking with videos, games, and even a function to replace the entire Internet with Fruit by the Foot.
Honest’s award-winning studio eats unconventional content for breakfast (or an afterschool snack), but still, this had to be different.
rehabstudio team up with Google, AKQA and Postpanic to launch a campaign thanking AdWords customers for their support in their first 10 years with a personalised bespoke video and YouTube channel showcasing customer success stories.
AdWords sent an email to their customers globally, inviting them to view a personalised Thank-You film on the channel, featuring their company name and URL formed from 1000s of lights, swarms of bees and dominoes, dynamically embedded within the film.
Produced in over 40 languages, the YouTube channel forms the heart of the anniversary campaign, letting customers submit their own success stories. The specially created system first uses geo-tagging to track the customer’s specific location, pinning their uploaded story to the channel’s 3D globe. The system then automatically visualizes their content within a Google Maps backdrop.
The channel also allows users to compare a rich series of business and consumer facts demonstrating the power of Adwords with data represented visually on a 3D globe, filterable by theme, sector and country, delivering a highly targeted, visual resource.
Crash The Superbowl is back this year with a twist! Doritos has brought Pepsi Max to the party and now you can choose which brand to make a commercial for: Doritos or Pepsi MAX. Think you really have what it takes? Then make a spot for both. Even Betty White is getting in on the action.
The explosive team at SilkTricky partnered with our friends at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners to refresh the Crash The Super Bowl campaign this year.
This extensive initiative involved several stages across a period of 6 months; teaser, submission, testing, voting, voting closed, and winner phases.
How they pulled it off:
The SilkTricky team used Flash, Away3D, Cinema 4D and AfterEffects and integrated with a RESTful API on the backend to get this site off the ground. The team also created a gallery for user generated videos that feels infinite. Silk also cast, shot and edited the live action component you’ll see along with the special effects. All this work created quite a challenge when paired with the heavy development, making this year’s site even more ambitious than it has ever been.
Coming soon there will also be a section called “Ads Dissected” which breaks down statistics from popular Super Bowl ads of the past. Using a narrative motion graphics piece this section is sure to be a visual treat.
Check out the live site and help your favorite ads make it to Super Bowl stardom!
Google and BBH had wanted to create a jobs campaign that made sense for most job hunters out there. A unique but simple way to capture the spirit of “hire me” with all the power of using Google. BBH created a super simple, super effective visual to convey this. The “tear sheet”. Running localized banner ads all across the US, the ID Corp. worked hand in hand with BBH to develop a photo shoot and asset that would not only look great with limited file size, but also convey real world job hunting.
Lollipop worked with Dentsu to create a site to support the launch of the Legendary Biru campaign for Sapporo Beer.
The creative for the campaign tells the story of the brewing process, weaving Japan’s deep cultural heritage into the narrative.
The site itself is centered on a character – the Sage – who is the keeper of the legend of Sapporo. He leads visitors on a ‘treasure hunt’ through the site where the goal is to collect a number of hidden scrolls. Some are easy to find and tell a brief story about the beer, while others are well hidden and require diligence to unlock. Those who reach the end of the journey are given a message tailored to the number of scrolls they’ve discovered, while those who manage to collect all 15 scrolls are entered to win a trip to Japan.
Lollipop designed and built the site, in addition to shooting the Sage video. Sons & Daughters shot the live action, while Crush created the CG, mattes and final compositing.
Digitally concoct the perfect mojito, or just salivate over one, with this sharp interactive site. Visit Puerto Rico with a video host, pick up mixology tips, and even learn what produce is in season from partner Harvest Sensations. Downloadable screensavers and wallpapers are also available, but the icet is your responsibility.
Honest worked with ad agency Cossette on the launch of John Grisham’s latest thriller, ‘Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer’, a crime novel aimed at teens. The goal was to introduce the character of Theo Boone in a unique way and give hints to the crime and mystery that he’s involved in without giving any of the plot away.
Honest directed and produced three commercials and created a website that delve into Theo’s backstory, the criminals he’s put away, and clues to new crimes that have been committed. The commercials work to reinforce the name ‘Theo Boone’, a new character that Grisham has created and one that we’ll surely see much more of in the future. The website gives kids (and adults) a chance to discover clues that Theo is looking at and come to their own conclusions about the cases . Drag, flip, listen, and investigate all of the items on the desk to make your own hypothesis.
The commercials will be playing on TV and theaters so watch out for “Theooo Booooone“.
View the interactive, 3D “Chevy Nation”: a virtual city complete with racing garage, chop shop, stadium, clubhouse and an “Eco Dome,” all promoting a Chevy lifestyle. The video-game-style setup lets you cruise the digital streets and get a little wind in your hair.
We are excited to finally announce a new site from the team at Welikesmall. Over the past 5 months, Welikesmall has been working with DraftFCB NY to create the experiential component for the Census 2010 campaign website.
We chatted with the team last week to get a better understanding of the overall concept and role WelikeSmall played during the 5 month production.
The Concept:
DraftFCB (NY) brought Welikesmall in early, to help ideate ways to extend the overall campaign online.
Welikesmall’s idea was to create an immersive government experience unlike any seen before. They wanted to show REAL Americans (not actors) telling their REAL stories. Census facts and relevant information would be interwoven seamlessly into each person’s story. The stories would take place across a sampling of American intersections, which became a metaphor into which they would frame the stories. To ensure diversity, WelikeSmall choose 3 intersections; Iconic Urban, Main Street and a Rural setting.
They created a simple and easy-to-use shell with a video marquee in the center. Engaging navigation lets visitors explore the multifaceted content. Users explore the intersections to reveal subtle commentary and sounds during real interviews, and dig deeper to watch documentary stories of real Americans within that community. Welikesmall wanted to keep the design clean and the content (the stories) front and center.
What part did Welikesmall execute?
Welikesmall conceived the concept for the site with our friends at DraftFCB. DraftFCB then pitched the concept directly to Census marketing team. The team loved it. Welikesmall then designed and developed the entire microsite. In addition they also handled the production of all 3 intersection shoots representing iconic Urban, Main Street and rural America. The documentary content was shot by Jason Kohn.
How did they create the panning effect on the site?
Upon visiting the site, visitors can pan around the intersection exploring hotspots, and revealing hints of audio as an overview of that person’s story. The goal was to get people to spend some time – check out a few stories. Well, that can be tough, especially on a government site. With such rich content, the team needed to really bring it forward in a unique and taunting way. By creating the immersive intersection with a fun and audio-enabled interaction, it helped make visitors want to actively navigate and explore.
To bring the site to life online, the visual effect was built in Flash utilizing Papervision 3D to simulate realistic camera moves when moving through the individual stories.
The team was excited that the government would support such an immersive site. Since it could not be fully 508 compliant, and realizing this was a true need for the audience, there is also an alternate version with fully compliant navigation.
The Intersection
To create the intersection shot, Welikesmall built a multi-camera array which we call Big Juan™. This allowed the team to capture a completely frozen intersection in a single moment of time.
The rig was custom-fabricated for Welikesmall by a bicycle frame welder from Montana. Big Juan™ is designed to break down and be easily transported. A 30-foot spanning arc of steel, the rig has fittings to be mounted on a scissor lift or cherry picker, and raised as high as 20 feet over the intersection. 30 Canon 500d Rebel T1i cameras were carefully calibrated and mounted at exact intervals along the span. Welikesmall hacked the Canon Software Development Kit ( SDK) in order to connect all cameras to a USB motherboard, then controlled remote shutter triggers through code, allowing for simultaneous exposures.
This is what it looked like setting Big Juan™ up just outside of Austin, Texas:
Players are able to watch and interact with the storyline by making key decisions for your character, Evan. In addition to these decision points, there is an additional level of gameplay in the online version that we call “playable moments.” You’ll have to react quickly and use your keyboard to help your character survive. At the end of part one, you’ll get to a cliff hanger which will prompt to you continue your adventure on your iphone with Part 2.
The iPhone game has two different kinds of shooter games, a 2-d side scrolling game and an over the shoulder shooter. As you beat each level of the iphone game, more and more of the story is revealed to you until you get to the end. After the final scene, players are given a secret code that allows them to go back online, enter the code and see a bonus scene. There’s also an infinite arcade mode for added playability.
At pureblacksunshine.com visitors are invited to step into shadows of the underworld, chartering a flight to a mysterious island to undertake a business deal with a difference.
Players who keep their cool and make it past the imposing steel door guarding the entrance to a seemingly abandoned warehouse are tested to the limits as they come face to face with the dealer, his pure organic stash, and a gun-toting gang of hired thugs. Movement through the site takes users from a first-hand look at the various roasts and beans on offer right through to the deal, where they’re connected to an online shop to peruse the goods available for purchase.
Lollipop produced the entire site, shot the video, did some design work and built the site in Flash.
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About Aarra
Aarra is the first strategic sales management agency of its kind. We oversee national business development for a comprehensive portfolio of best-in-class digital shops. These boutique portfolio companies look to Aarra to procure work from world-class advertising agencies and brands, partnering in design and production to deliver award-winning creative across a variety of capability sets within digital marketing.
For the advertising agencies we support, our role is a mix of matchmaker, deal broker, strategist, catalyst, consultant and trusted partner. We connect clients with the capabilities they need, from mobile to microsites, applications to installations. We realize, however, that no matter the project scope, finding a suitable vendor goes beyond simply who can do the work. Partnership is rooted in culture and creative synergy, location and availability. We’re experts in these kinds of relationships. We maintain objectivity in selection, save valuable time for decision makers, and provide a framework to expedite ideation, technical approaches, budgets, and procurement. We’re the first in the digital world to offer this unique utility, and we’ve assembled only the finest in digital production to support it.
