Framestore, the visual effects specialist, recently designed the pipeline to deliver a multifaceted advertising campaign that has gone live in the UK this Spring.
Working with France-based marketing agency Publicis, the Framestore team was headed up by directors William Bartlett and Simon Wood and real-time supervisor Taekyu Yang. They were tasked with creating various assets in the run-up to the launch of Heineken Silver beer.
Taking a new approach to the brand, Framestore came up with an original concept that builds on metaverse trend in a humorous way. The campaign revolves around the apparent launch of a world’s-first digital beverage, served in a virtual brewery within ‘Decentraland’.
Wood says: “The premise is that Heineken Silver lives in the metaverse so viewers need to believe they are watching a video game from the first few frames no matter which platform they are watching it on before it inevitably transfers into a Heineken spot.
“It meant that any derivatives and out of home deliverables including the Piccadilly Lights full-screen experience were all keyed back to the overall narrative that the beer is in the metaverse.”
Yang adds: “Framestore is well known for hyper-realistic, lifelike CG but this was intentionally designed to do the opposite and be stylised, light-hearted and ultimately fun.
“This posed an interesting challenge for us which we could approach by harnessing the Unreal Engine and Marketplace, giving us the capability, capacity and technology to create something really appealing.”
Game on
Framestore’s experience in video game production was ideal for the stylised game brief. With direct access to in-house facilities, Framestore was able to provide a full-service offering.
“The client wanted a video game aesthetic, so using Unreal Engine was the immediate route to market for us especially due to the target audience, production speed, and its potential for more interactive communication, including live sessions with the clients, and more intuitive collaboration across the creative teams,” says Yang.
“Simon Wood’s extensive video game experience, and history of working with the Immersive Team meant we knew we could create something that stands out visually.”
Involving the client in the live sessions allowed Wood to receive real-time feedback, giving a wider degree of flexibility not found in traditional project pipelines.
Framestore also created launch content featuring the virtual beer for social media and assisted with specific content for the metaverse Decentraland media event.
Back to reality
For phase two of the campaign, Heineken Silver beer itself was launched, tying the virtual and real worlds together. Publicis requested creatives from Framestore to be used across Heineken’s social and out of home (OOH) platforms.
“Using avatars already created for the socials, we were briefed to have the avatars break through a 4th wall where the Heineken virtual can and CG avatar turn into a “real-life” Heineken Silver can and arm,” says Bartlett.
Wood adds: “This is an exciting step in creating an Unreal real-time advertising campaign that’s featured across all platforms including every deliverable that you would see in an integrated advertising campaign.
“We also had to shoot the live-action arm and can element that needed to be shot at the exact right angle for each of the different versions, this was particularly important for the Piccadilly Lights full-screen takeover that we were creating content for, due to the technical preparation and camera angles that we needed to take into consideration.”
Global Heineken brand director Bram Westenbrink concludes: “It has been an exciting few months launching Heineken Silver, from launching in the metaverse to working on spectacular OOHs in Piccadilly and across Europe, the brand has unlocked so many interesting creative routes that challenged stereotypes in beer advertising and have brought fame to the campaign.
“The success of the launch was down to the hard work of our whole team and the many agency partners involved including the amazing creative from our directors William and Simon.”
Framestore recently announced founding member and current CEO Sir William Sargent will be replaced by new CEO Mel Sullivan after more than two decades at the helm of the company.
