Life Happens | A Promise Kept

Life Happens is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping consumers make smart insurance decisions to safeguard their loved ones.

The Challenge

For Life Happens 25th Anniversary they needed a video that communicated the importance of life insurance in an emotionally moving way.

The Approach

After the success of our last video with Life Happens, we knew we wanted to change things up. So we began to explore what their brand would look like in a fully animated execution. And in doing so, it opened up our minds to unlimited narratives. Because you see, with animation, we weren’t limited in our creativity by the number of location shoots, or access to talent, etc… if we could draw it, we could do it.

The Execution

From the beginning, we knew that we wanted this video to have a classic animated feel. But it wasn’t until after the script was finished that we began to envision exactly how that would take form. Since the aim of the narrative had always been to feel authentic to its core, we felt the animation style should follow suit. And so we decided on a cel animated approach to give this a timeless, engaging, and almost Disney-like quality.

Early Design Frame

Bringing the Baby to Life

Before we were even halfway through, Life Happens was so on fire for this video that they asked us to create two more “Life Moment” animations that they could use in their drip marketing campaign.

A Positive Surprise

When you’ve got a growing family…

Adobe | CMO.COM

You’re most likely familiar with Adobe, but if you’re not, they create software that pretty much changes the world.

The Challenge

Adobe came to us with two challenges: They needed a video that introduced their marketplace for Chief Marketing Officers in a conceptually creative, beautifully executed, and wholly informative way… and they needed it in a week.

The Approach

A ball. No, a dot. That was the original idea. But not just any dot. A moving dot in a sort of Rube Goldberg Machine. Why? Because when you’re attempting to communicate A LOT of information, you need a guide, something to follow. We knew that if we could keep our audience watching the journey of a ball, I mean a dot, then we could touch on all the great offerings that CMO DOT COM has to offer without them clicking away. Mix in a few moments of tension, delight, and beautifully minimal design, and you’ve got something going on.

The Results

After letting us know how satisfied they were with the video and how successful the video had performed, they ended up implementing some our design, and yes, the DOT into their web experience and logo. Quite the compliment.

Adobe liked the first project so much that they asked us to follow it up with a similar video describing statistics about CMOs. This time around, we brought more life and character to our friendly red dot, representing quirky facts about CMOs and their world.

The main KPI that we measured for this campaign was the engagement rate. We’re proud to report that an average viewer was likely to engage with this video for 85% of it’s length or more. It was important to keep the audience engaged the entire time so that they could comprehend the entire value proposition of Adobe CMO. Mission accomplished.

CMO Stats

Klacci | Fair Warning

Klacci is a global leader in manufacturing a wide range of custom and standard door lock systems for today’s modern world.

The Challenge

Klacci needed to make their audience FEEL the benefit of their products.

The Approach

We knew that if our goal was to make Klacci’s audience FEEL something, then we needed to come up with two different ideas that best put the audience in a place to EXPERIENCE that feeling. The idea of a school shooting was a major risk, for sure, but if handled with care, it also delivered the biggest payoff. As for the hotel idea, we were inspired by the current trend of “skipping the counter” to get to your room. But for us, the real magic of these videos is what happens during “bullet time.” You see, we’re often tasked with delivering both emotion AND information. Placing the “bullet time” scenes in the middle of the narratives not only created a cliffhanger approach that ensured audiences would stick around to see what happened, but it communicated the technical information in a way that only added to the confidence of the product being able to do it’s job.

The Result

Klacci. Was. Stoked! No seriously, they loved it so much they not only came back for more work, but they asked us to both NAME and LOGO DESIGN their product seen below, and showcased in the hotel video above.

Name + Logo Design

Kii: [kee]

An alternate spelling of “key” that communicates intelligent internet capabilities.

Used in a sentence: “So, why not skip the wait by putting the control in the hands of your guests with Kii...by Klacci.”

Schenley | Just In Time

Schenley is a cleaning product company that aims to make you more efficient so you can experience more of the things you really want to do.

The Challenge

A client in a different time zone. A brand still working through its identity. Products that weren’t quite finished. And a college film budget set out to accomplish a Hollywood idea. No complaints here! But this project was admittedly a doozy.

The Approach

Honestly sometimes the best approach when faced with a major task...is just a lot of good hard work. Every one on the Veracity team AND the client team worked all hours of the night and day to make this piece come to life. It was by no means easy, we want to be honest, but truly a product of collaboration and hard work.

The Result

A lot of laughs, a lot of tears, and a lot of lessons learned on how to make the next one even better!

100XR | A Rising Tide

100XR is an open community of entrepreneurs, storytellers, creatives, and more that come together to create and invest in projects that promote a better world.

The Challenge

Ultimately, 100XR was looking to create a teaser with a hint of company overview that they could use on their homepage. And since 100XR is a first of its kind, it was on us to help them say what they needed to say in a way that creatives and entrepreneurs alike would be inspired to join.

The Approach

A rising tide raises all ships. That was the foundational idea when crafting this video. And with the help of our good friends at Process Creative, we were able to bring that idea to life with a bold cinematic touch. Countless hours of story development, exploration, modeling, animation and rendering were poured into the execution of a rich and tactile look. Because here’s the thing, if you’re gonna speak to storytellers and creative entrepreneurs, then you gotta craft your message to fit the language they speak.

Apex | Conference Opener

The Apex Expo is an annual conference for the Airline Passenger Experience Association.

The Challenge

When Post Modern Group approached us to create something for their client, Apex, they knew 2012 was a big year for them, so they wanted something different to open their annual conference.

The Approach

Pulling inspiration from Catch Me if You Can and adding in a little Parisian flair (two things we think of when airplanes and traveling are involved) always does the trick.

Platform Solutions – ThingWorx

The Challenge

PTC came to us because they needed a video for their Thingworx platform – a powerful tool that brings efficiency and scalability to the process of building smart city solutions.

The Approach

Sometimes, it’s better to sell an idea than a product. Rather than talk about the product itself, we decided to demonstrate the benefits of working with a platform, knowing that Thingworx is the clear choice once someone adopts that way of thinking.

To realize this approach, we looked at visual concepts leaning into the need for a platform. For example, an early concept showed services as tetris/puzzle tiles, and the difficulty that would be assembling a puzzle without a place to put it.

EARLY STYLE FRAMES

Ultimately, we landed on two separate visual concepts, to show the contrast between the old way and the platform based way. The old way would be represented by having to “cut” a service to fit its placement, demonstrating the manual and forced nature of building custom solutions per-need. The platform-based way was shown with a visual metaphor of “growing” solutions out of their need.

FINAL DESIGN DIRECTION

Execution

Once we landed on the growing city concept, we knew it would be best accomplished with real 3D rather than with isometric 2D designs. The design frames were translated into 3D with Cinema4D. Though we knew we wanted to keep the look mostly flat, rendering with Octane allowed us to incorporate subtle soft shading that gave the designs a really tangible feel.

MOTION TEST

Intuit | ONE

In short, Intuit is the one-stop-shop for the best financial SaaS platforms for both business and personal.

The Challenge

A lot of people know the name TurboTax. A lot of people know the name Quickbooks. And a lot of people know the names Mint and ProConnect. But not a lot of people know that all of those brands fit under the umbrella of Intuit. That was their problem…and they needed us to fix it.

The Approach

Intuit had already been working on their rebrand to help people see the design similarities between their brands, so it was on us to bring those to life and reveal the connective tissue between each one. That being the case, it only made sense to dive back into the draft designs and show the transformation of each logo in the same style. This project was a true delight from start to finish and Intuit was equally delighted with the result!

simplehuman | Sensor Mirror Hi-Fi

simplehuman designs everyday tools to help people be more efficient at home. We’ve produced live action and animated videos for simplehuman across multiple product categories.

The Challenge

The latest simplehuman mirror is not only a great mirror… it’s the ultimate makeup workstation, complete with a built-in, Alexa-enabled, high-fidelity speaker. Our task was to quickly show the uncompromising quality that simplehuman brought to both the light and speaker components of this product.

The Approach

From early in the project, 3D product animation was a clear winner, for which technique would show the mirror’s features clearly. This project began as a more features-based video, but we eventually learned that there were really only two main points that viewers needed to take away from watching this video. First, the mirror’s light has excellent quality, bringing out every shade in the makeup. Second, the included smart speaker brings hi-fidelity sound to your routine.

With those two points in hand, we knew we needed to visualize each of these things in a memorable way. Because neither light nor sound is directly visible, we developed ways to show the rays and pulses of these phenomena, as they spread out from the mirror. For the light, we knew there had to be a subtle, shimmering colorfulness to the rays, to represent the full-spectrum output. For the sound, we showed exaggerated waves on the ground in an elegant and colorful way, that ties it subtly with how the rays emanated from the light ring.

The Results

This video aided the sensor mirror hi-fi’s launch, and simplehuman plans to use additional variations of the video to drive sales on social platforms, including vertical versions for Instagram and Facebook stories.

Aisin | Product Features

Aisin is a global supplier of automotive components.

The Challenge

Aisin recently created a futuristic car navigation platform and they needed a fresh and relatable way to showcase all of its features so that both OEMs and individuals would take interest. No biggie, right? But then you start thinking, “wait a minute, car commercials require driving shots, with lots of locations, and hired traffic cops, permitting, blocking off streets, and money, money, and more money.” If this video were just focusing on one feature, some of those things might be doable, but five features?! Not to mention the fact that we needed to come up with a cohesive story that could clearly connect all the dots into one fluid narrative.

The Approach

First things first, we needed a futuristic concept. The problem with futuristic concepts however is that they often feel so detached from reality that people don’t actually believe them. The solution? Showcase the futuristic features solving the most mundane problems in life. We found that this approach helped balance out the believability and use of their product really well. Okay, but how do we solve for showcasing all 5 features? Well, since the biggest costs associated with producing a car commercial are all the driving shots, we needed to find a way to tell a story with little to no driving. At first this seemed impossible, but then we realized that people don’t actually use their navigation systems WHILE they’re en route, they use them to FIND the route. And THAT is when the possibilities started to open up for us on how to bring this video to life.

Also, as a part of our contract, Aisin requested 25 print and web-ready stills for their marketing purposes.

And of course, a few BTS!

The Result

Aisin will be the first to admit that this was a big and scary leap for them. They had never done anything to this level before, so we were very thankful for the trust they placed in us. And the great news is, they told us that we absolutely blew them away, and are already considering a few more videos in the future!

Masimo | MightySat Series

Masimo is the creator of MightySat – a fingertip pulse oximeter that measures your oxygen saturation, pulse rate, perfusion index, and pleth variability index so that athletes can discover what they’re body is telling them, and push themselves to perform at their peak potential.

The Challenge

Since most of the MightySat ads we created were high-intensity and serious in nature, Masimo requested we make this next ad more light-hearted and comical. Oh, and since the availability of certain talent was limited, we needed to concept, write, and shoot this in 10 days.

The Approach

Oftentimes, comedy is found in two very contrasting characters found on the same stage. In this case, the contrast was between that of a young, upcoming pro (Taylor Fritz), and an older, retired pro (Tommy Haas). The question we wanted our audience to ask was, “Does Tommy have what it takes?” Enjoy.

The Challenge

Similar to the Tommy Haas ad, Masimo needed a light-hearted commercial that focused on the benefits the MightySat can bring to retired athletes.

The Approach

What better way to showcase an effective product, than to see how it can help you overcome some young blood? Cue Daniela Hantuchova versus Coco Vandeweghe.

The Challenge

As our third installment in the Masimo series, we were tasked with spotlighting Taylor Fritz, an up and coming tennis star.

The Approach

We determined the best way to tell Taylor’s story and how it relates to the product was to showcase his desire to be number one, and how the MightySat is helping him do just that.

The Challenge

This was the second MightySat ad we created for Masimo, and they needed us to capitalize on how even the most aggressive players can hone their skills thanks to the MightySat.

The Approach

Let’s just put it this way… Coco Vandeweghe is a very passionate player, so anything that can help her control her passion is a major benefit.

The Challenge

This was our first MightySat National TV spot for Masimo. They came to us because they wanted something exciting that captured the Olympic spirit.

Approach

After learning that MightySat was sponsoring Olympian Dotsie Bausch, we chose to focus on what it takes to achieve Olympic success. And since we were targeting athletes, we knew that it wasn’t enough to simply speak athlete… we had to make ‘em feel it.

Tango | Two 2 Tango

Tango helps teams instantly document any online process so they can spend more time executing those processes.

The Challenge

Tango. Is. Back! We absolutely LOVED working with Tango on their past project! The biggest challenge was simply pushing ourselves to make the sequel even better.

The Approach

After throwing a whole lot of fun ideas at the wall, pushing pretty much every limit this scope allowed, and pulling a few strings, we were able to pull off another great tango video...with the help of Howie Mandel…yes, you read that right. Great guy, great voice…

The Result

…and it turned out to be another great video.