Overview
Acura ILX Release
360° Digital Campaign
Social Media
Visual Design
Animation
Digital Painting
Sapient-Razorfish
Senior Designer
Assignment
To promote the upcoming release of the 2016 Acura ILX—targeting a “young professional” demographic (ages 25-34)—using Acura’s various digital channels.
SOLUTION
We engaged popular musical acts to create 8 songs that reflected the 8-speed transmission of the ILX for a mini, online “music festival.” We created artwork, videos, and social media pieces to lead our audience to a landing page where they could immerse themselves in music and visuals.
Sound Visualizer
A GIF SOLUTION
Initially, my responsibility was to design the “sound visualizer,” which consisted of taking Acura product photography and painting in a hyperreal landscape that we could later adjust to fit the different moods of each track. Originally, we planned to create an actual sound visualizer that would react to the audio. Due to the availability of resources, we instead mimicked a sound visualizer through the creation of animated GIF files. This turned out to work out nicely as GIFs were more compatible with different browsers, devices, and social media channels, helping us to spread these bite-sized pieces throughout all of Acura’s and the participating artists’ various digital and social channels.
COLOR
To match the growing speed of the eight tracks, different color combinations were used going from mellow and cool to having more intensity and contrast. This along with the changing shapes gave each track its own visual partner, creating a hyperreal space that matched the growing intensity of the music.
Image Treatment
FROM Various sources, one cohesive look
We did not shoot any new photography for this project. At our disposal for creating the artwork were Acura’s product photography, photos supplied to us by the musical artists, and stock photography. From these various sources, we had to create a cohesive look using color, graphical treatment, and animation to take the original assets and bring them into this new world.
Original vs. FINAL TREATMENT
Typopgraphy
Desktop Layout
Mobile
Results
This was Razorfish’s first major digital campaign for Acura. The client was very satisfied with the direction of this campaign and how it invited new audiences within the target demographic from the larger culture—and from a diverse range of access points. It hit over 25,000 plays on SoundCloud and greatly increased social media interactions and followers for Acura, helping improve an online following that previously was lacking.