Final Frontier teamed up with creative hot shop PLUSMINUS to create a short animated piece for Beefeater Gin, fusing film noir and spy genres in an after-dark exploration of Shanghai’s hidden speakeasies.
PLUSMINUS creative director Mark Kong outlines the concept:
“The idea was to bring attention to the classic London Beefeater icon by making it relevant to local drinking culture, namely Shanghai’s vibrant speakeasy bar scene. What if the Beefeater character became a kind of shadow guardian behind every great bartender, creating seductive gin cocktails. Beyond that it’s also a tribute to the modern ‘urban explorer’, equipped with the latest tech gear and a curious mind.”
The project was the first created under PLUSMINUS’ “Creative Union Made” banner. Creative director Maurice Latzke explains the motto:
“It’s all about brotherhood, good taste and ultimately, great work, an ethos we share with Final Frontier. It was thrilling to work together to turn each frame into beautiful visuals. Despite the time constraints, the dedication to quality produced a final result beyond our expectation.”
We collaborated with Facebook Creative Shop APAC to create a 2D animation campaign for Sephora Skincare Loft. The 30-second vertical film takes us to a cosy apartment where a woman and her cats have fun with various Sephora skincare products.
The use of animation demonstrates the versatility of the medium and defies the usual expectations for luxury cosmetic brand advertising.
The playful hand-drawn-style campaign appears on Instagram and Facebook across the APAC region in various forms: as a full 30” spot, as separate shorter videos and as animated cinemagraphs. Each iteration is customised for the viewer, with the real photographed products changing depending on their specific dataset.
For animation studio Wonderlust, the the main challenge was “adding a product shot in a way that would fit with the overall (2D handdrawn) design language”, explains creative director Ryan Rumboldt.
Siemens released its new film this week, a dark anime short created by R/GA Shanghai, produced by Final Frontier and directed by Ariel Costa.
The film is designed to attract applicants for Siemens China’s Cyber Defence Center which helps its customers protect themselves against an increasing volume of cybercriminals and hacker attacks.
2D animation is a new creative direction for Siemens in China and further demonstrates the rising demand for animation in the world’s second largest advertising market.
The insight for the unique and surprising approach came when Professor Wen Tang, Head of the Industrial Security Lab, met with R/GA Shanghai creatives and likened his department to the Night’s Watch, a military order in Game of Thrones that guards the Wall separating the Seven Kingdoms from the lands beyond.
R/GA Shanghai executive creative director, Terence Leong said, “Our creative ambition was to tell a simple story to inspire those who are looking for a meaningful career to consider Siemens. It was Professor Tang who described the department as “guardians” and that immediately sparked off the entire storyline.”
The 40” vertical format film is made for WeChat, also accessible via a web link to a QR that takes them to the app. Users can then experience the satisfaction of the job by playing a simple H5 game in which the objective is to debug hackers.
From designs, animation and of course direction, Gabriel Fermanelli just rock again with this new ID made for Adult Swing. A production from the fellows of Tronco in the prairies or Argentina.
New work has been created by R/GA Shanghai for Nike China’s High School Basketball League (Nike HBL) to mark the competition’s Greater China Invitational Finals.
The Road to HBL invites fans to live out their own Nike HBL animated journey via a stylized digital choose your own adventure with 700 possible storylines. Users get first- hand experience of the rigorous training regime, team bonding, pep talks and match excitement from the POV of a young player, creating their own personalized basketball diary and shareable team poster.
Packed with a base of 5,000 story and song combinations, ‘Year with Uber’ allows each user to generate content that are location-specific and unique. That is why users in Thailand will see tuk-tuks, encounter tai-tais (wealthy aunties) in Singapore, the iconic Melbourne Cup and Sydney’s New Year’s Eve fireworks in Australia, the national sport of cricket in India. Festivals and holidays like Ramadan, Christmas and Deepavali, is also featured.
Each user has a different experience up to Two and a Half minutes of video totally customized depending on the personal history of rides of 2017. “Scenes and lyrics are directly informed by user trip data, making each film one of a kind. We built an engine interpreting that data and selecting accordingly the visuals and lyrics, stitching them all together to create the final film.” says R/GA creative director, Cyril Louis.
If you are based in the Asia Pacific, you can have the full experience on this link
Talking about inspirations for the film, Ralph Karam, Le Cube’s creative director says “Definitely Super Nintendo games like Street Fighter II and Final Fight from the 90’s were on the inspirational board. Also, there are tons of references from the Animes, mainly in the animation style. The mood and feeling are of being in an Asian street market: lots of information, people from all kind and different traits, hospitable and full of sensations, flavors, and colors. Such an invigorating mess to delight your senses.”
