Promethean - Product launch teaser
Role
Editor, animator
The Challenge
The new flagship product was due to be released in a few months, and the business wanted to generate excitement ahead of the launch. They challenged us to do this without giving away specifics about the product, its features, or even how it looked.
The Idea
I knew whatever we did needed to be bold, colorful, and completely different from anything we'd ever done, so we needed to lean heavily on our secondary color palette. My first idea was to introduce 3D animation into our workflow. My second idea was to show the product without showing the product.
The Execution
I created a series of various 3D simulations to illustrate the statements made in each scene. The teaser opens with a vague statement about change on a mysterious, dark background. The upbeat music grabs your ear and pulls you in as you wonder what change will occur.
The next scene is a cloth simulation on top of a model of the product, ActivPanel 10. We thought that would be the perfect way to show the product without showing the product. As an educational technology company with more than 10 generations of interactive flat panels, we knew customers and partners would recognize the shape under the cloth and know a new panel was coming soon.
The next few scenes were trickier to convey without revealing the product or other components that would release at the same time, so we had to think way outside of the box. For "A new unified experience," we focused on the word "new" and wanted a fun, celebratory scene to add to the building excitement. I created two sets of particles--the confetti and the balloons--to burst through the frame and spread throughout the room.
"To evolve and grow with you" was a fun idea to execute. It's a soft body simulation with colorful balls in various materials expanding in an invisible box. As they move around, they are squashed by other balls as they all try to make room for themselves. I thought this was the perfect way to illustrate something adapting to its environment.
We had previously used imagery of puzzle pieces to represent customization, tailoring the product to how you use it, so we brought that back for the new product. "Just the way you want it" is a puzzle balloon that inflates and begins to float, representing the endless possibilities the user could experience.
The last scene is another cloth simulation. As the cloth expands and is jostled by turbulence, and quilt-like pattern is formed, and the cloth balloons around the stitching. In the center of the cloth is the company's logo mark. "Built from research" is a head nod to the company's 25+ years of experience and commitment to keeping the customer first. "Designed for you" is yet another teaser to the aforementioned change that was to come. For this scene, we focused on the word "designed." I thought about how people make quilts and give them as gifts to friends and family. A gift like that requires attention to details and knowledge of what the recipient is like. It was a bit of a reach, but the team agreed it was a good visual for this.
