Our automotive team partnered with GTB to create a spot for Ford Retail shops across Europe. Drawing the parallel of enhancing ice cream desserts from a pop to a decadent sundae, we showed Ford vehicles being upgraded with different configurations and specs available. Our internal Creative Director lead the campaign from concept to completion, and worked hard to give the spot the best look and feel for the message — not too childish, not too brash, not to dull — to strike the perfect balance between pop and realistic CGI visuals.

The agency concept animatic captured the energy of the idea and set the tone for the spot. The idea was to showcase “variety” in a fun and engaging way. The style was very loose, so our creative team further developed the concept. Initially, we created a test animation to give a sense of the look and style of the spot. This was developed this further through a series of style frames, where we used a strong, vivid color palette to make graphic icons stand out without being aggressive.

Once the agency and client agreed on the direction of the style frames, we storyboarded the full spot. Static frames were worked up in extreme detail to set a clear style direction for the campaign. The ice cream designs were carefully picked to allow for the smoothest transitions and to show clear progression.

Our CGI and design teams worked in tandem, focusing on the details of the ice-cream and the photorealism of the cars. The cars featured model upgrades of wheels, bumpers, doors, and styling features. Our proprietary rendering software, hydraGen® streamlined the whole automotive pipeline as we digitally recreated several Ford vehicles. 

The spot concluded with existing running footage of the Ford Focus. We tied live action with the animation in a simple scene that showed the vehicle driving away from a beautiful sunny pier. A photographic backplate was used for the location and the railings were adapted to match those in the live action footage. A unified grade was applied to create a better connection between the two scenes. Using HDRi lighting from the pier, we animated a CG car driving away followed by the live-action footage of the Ford Focus. The final deliverable is a fun, impactful campaign that is running in Ford Retail locations across Europe.