SaaS Explainer – Among the Clouds
BetterCloud is a revolutionary (we realize that word is over-used, but in this case it’s totally accurate) SaaS that rounds up all the other SaaS’ so IT people can stop pulling out their hair and finally take control of the cloud.
The Challenge
You’d think when a product is that revolutionary, it’d be easy to make a killer video, but it’s not. Often times, the more fantastic the product, the more you really have to help your audience see a new world of possibilities. Additionally, we had the task of visualizing what the cloud looks like and how it can be organized.
The Approach
It may sound too obvious, but much of our inspiration came from the two words within the name itself – “better” and “cloud.” We knew that at some point we would need to show data structures that looked like clouds, but what does “better” look like? In the case of BetterCloud, “better” looks like organization. This left us with the visual challenge of what objects get organized, because we’re talking about intagible files, systems and user profiles. Through many iterations of the visual style, we landed on a metaphor that uses different platonic solid forms to loosely represent each type of data. Because we introduce each form with proper context, viewers will build associations for these abstract forms.
Concept Exploration
Design Language Development
Storyboard
The Execution
To visualize this cloud world, we needed a world with a high level of detail to show the sheer size of the datasets viewers are dealing with. We embraced this challenge by animating with cloners and particle systems in 3D. We chose to set this world in the sky as a nod to the cloud metaphor, and lit our simple scene with HDRIs. Octane quickly became the obvious choice for rendering this world, and we fell in love with the way frosted glass complimented the HDRI sky.
Most of the video is a continuous scene, and we needed to build a new portal-transition rig to get us from the dark, old world of on-premise data to the bright sky of the cloud.
The Message
Simply put, the best way to show people the future, is to show them where they’ve been. With that in mind, we told the story of SaaS and how it’s evolved over time, leaving BetterCloud as the hero that brings Saas to new heights.
Product Videos – Experian + Partnerships
Experian is one of the major three credit bureaus. They help individuals protect, understand, and improve their credit scores. Our relationship with Experian first began with us solely creating videos for their products. But over the years, they’ve brought us into some of their strongest partnerships to create videos for companies like Morgan Stanley, Costco, and more!
Experian
This video was for their Sales Summit. It was a lot of fun telling a story that walked people through their biggest product.
Experian + Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley has a much more refined voice and brand that required us to find the “brand bridge” between them and Experian.
Experian + Costco
Working with Costco was a real joy. Costco intentionally doesn’t do a lot of marketing, so it was really fun exploring with them the types of narrative storytelling that best fit their brand.
Experian + Partnerships
You’ll notice that these video end with template text. This allowed Experian to seamlessly drop in the logo from any of their partnerships so that the shelf-life and usability of these videos could go the distance.
The Result
“We are so happy with how they turned out.”
Product Campaign Videos - Thermo Fisher Scientific
Thermo Fisher Scientific is a world leader in improving the human condition through systems, consumables, and services for researchers.
The Challenge
We’ve been working with Thermo Fisher with many years now, so when they came to us with a request to try something fresh, different, and “cool,” we were all ears! But to be frank… how do you make the cloning process “cool?”
The Approach
Little did we know, to Researchers, cloning already is “cool,” so all we had to do was design cloning in a way that really took the stage… that’s right, we rocked the clone! We combined a few killer images from Getty with rock and roll design vibes and one killer original composition, and this, my friends, is what it looks like when Researchers rock out.
And about halfway through the project, everyone at Thermo Fisher was so excited that they asked for 8 cutdown videos for social media purposes. Check out a few of them below…
The Results
This is what we received from our main point of contact just days into launching this campaign…
“We’re up to 170K views inside 8 days. Not bad!”
Brand Video – CorVel
CorVel is an American technology company that offers comprehensive risk management solutions to employers, third party administrators, insurance companies, and more.
The Challenge
CorVel needed a way to talk about their innovative brand in a way that felt...well, innovative.
The Approach
Quite frankly, innovation is a tricky subject to showcase. Why? Because innovation is one of those things that you tend to only recognize when you see it. So, we decided to build a video that showcased what innovation means, specifically in this industry…
The Result
…and the client love it.
Product Partnership – Star Wars / Kylo Ren
HJC is the #1 motorcycle helmet brand in North America. Their sole focus is to provide high quality, comfortable, and reasonably priced helmets to motorcyclists around the world.
The Challenge
HJC knew they had a great idea in creating a Kylo Ren motorcycle helmet but what they didn’t know, was how to share it with the world. Our orders? Create a video that makes this helmet irresistible, and makes the good people at Lucasfilm proud.
The Approach
We’ve all done it. We’ve all raised our hand at something and hoped The Force would kick in... even if it would just move the TV remote a few inches closer. With that in mind, we set out to captivate every Star Wars fan/motorcyclist out there by placing elements from Star Wars: The Force Awakens into an “earthly” setting. What if your garage felt more like the Dark Council? What if you and your motorcycle were one? What if you could don the helmet of the Dark Lord’s grandson himself, then take off into a galaxy far, far away? What if you dared to “Explore Your Dark Side”? What if?
Storyboards
The Result
HJC unveiled this helmet with our video at Comic-Con and they received off the chart pre-sales.
Click the image below to watch this video on HJC’s website… with John Williams’ masterpiece as the score!
Product Launch – CorVel
The Challenge
CorVel was just about to launch a new feature within their platform and they desperately needed an explainer video to unpack all its goodness fast! And we don’t mean they wanted a fast video… we mean they needed this video in just a couple of weeks fast.
The Approach
We decided an exploded feature aesthetic would help CorVel’s audience focus on each aspect to help them really see its value in action. And the rest, well, just involved a lot of head down hard work. :)
The Cutdown
The Results
“I appreciate you sending this over so quickly, and your help on this project! We are very happy with how it turned out.”
Product Explainer Video – Network Firewall
The Challenge
Though you might know them as a phone carrier, AT&T is one of the world’s largest telecommunications companies. Firewalls are a vital tool in network security, and AT&T has brought firewalls into the modern era by enhancing them with a unique blend of machine learning, data analytics, and the knowledge of human experts. They came to us with the task of explaining this sophisticated approach, and showing the world what sets it apart from existing methods.
The Approach
As with many networking products, we were faced with visualizing something that people have never seen. Firewalls don’t look like anything in real life, so we needed to develop a visual metaphor that explained their functionality. While the network was easy to show with an interconnected web, enveloping the entire web in a shield wasn’t enough to show the intricacies of AT&T’s approach.
Instead, we decided to give each individual endpoint of the web a “glass box” shield. Each shield had multiple layers to signify the literal layers of security employed in standard firewalls. The uniqueness in AT&T’s firewall approach is to dynamically and intelligently filter incoming packets, rather than setting static rules. To show this, we developed the idea of a fence-like mesh that changes its shape to allow or block different shaped packets.
Because these concepts needed their full visualization to be understood, we took to Cinema 4D to create several 3D styleframes. While that was happening, we built a sketch storyboard to communicate the story’s flow. As AT&T’s team reviewed and approved that storyboard, we updated the sketch frames to become a full sequence of 3D styleframes. This set us up to jump right into animation, where we used OctaneRender to bring realism to the network world, and After Effects to composite glowing attacks and digital textures into the scenes.
Process
Product Launch Video – Tour 360 2.0
For the serious golfer, the adidas Tour360 2.0 isn’t just a shoe, it’s the gateway to a better swing, stance, putt, less bogies, and more birds.
The Challenge
“The details matter.” In a nutshell, that’s what adidas told us when they came to us in need of a video for their Tour360 2.0 Golf Shoe. Just the slightest enhancement in stability can make the difference between two strokes and three… and when you’re a serious golfer, that’s a big deal. So, it was on us to create a short ad that clearly showcased what’s different about this shoe from the previous version, and why it’s better.
The Approach
From the moment we sat down to concept, we all seemed to be thinking the same thing… this video needs to be about “the next step” in shoe evolution. So instead of simply showing the latest version of the Tour360 2.0, we felt it would be stronger to start with the old Tour360, and show each feature evolve the instant the shoe stepped onto the fairway. That way, our audience would see both what was new, and why it was better than before.
Storyboard
For most of our work, we start with sketched storyboards, and then move into a fully developed look & feel. For this project, the 3D nature of the work meant storyboards were best served with a pencil-sketch approach. Working in Procreate on an iPad Pro allowed us to quickly create these boards, while still having layered content we could use in our animatic. We used these storyboard frames to create a quick blocking animatic, taking care not to get caught up in the methods or framing.
Animatic
Execution
The final project was animated in Cinema 4D and rendered with VRay. The tactility and appeal of these visuals needed a strong sonic pairing, so we worked with composer John Anderson to bring original music to the video. Rather than use sound design, each cut and movement was carefully considered for its musical impact. The result still feels motivated by the action but not out of place, considering the subject is a largely motionless shoe.
The Results
Product Overview - BetterCloud
BetterCloud creates SaaS Management and Security that is customized to each business.
The Challenge
BetterCloud needed an overview video that really hit on the pain points of IT professionals and walked them through how BetterCloud solves those pain points.
The Approach
Once we identified the exact pain points of IT professionals, we crafted this video to feel like one big PAINKILLER… both visually and audibly. It may sound simple, but to IT professionals, the solutions mentioned in this video are a big deal.
“Thank you so much for your help on this project! I am very happy with how it turned out so please pass that along to the team who worked on it.”
Product Video – Athletics Collection
QALO creates durable, silicone wedding rings for those that live an active lifestyle.
The Challenge
QALO had just created a new material and a new ring design for their upcoming lineup and they needed a video to showcase the beauty, durability and design.
The Approach
Let the beauty and design “speak for itself.” We knew from the very beginning this wasn’t just another piece of jewelry. QALO spent a lot of time designing these rings to feel like an extension of their audience. Each ring is built to breathe, lift, and live with their wearer, so it was on us to get that message across in a unique way. In order to do that, we felt it best to show the journey a ring takes in its formation. There’s just something about journey stories that keeps our attention.
Concept Art
Features Video – Everlaw
The Challenge
Everlaw has been crushing it ever since we created their first Brand + Product Videos followed by their Product Tour + Storybuilder Videos. So when they came to us with this opportunity to create a video about their new FOIA features, we were immediately onboard! Since we’d already made four videos with Everlaw, the main challenge we needed to overcome, was to create something fresh that still fit within the family of videos we’d already created.
The Approach
During our discovery meeting with Everlaw, we kept hearing these new features described in the context of a user. And since we don’t speak legalese, it was really helpful for us in understanding the benefits of these new features. Naturally, it only seemed right to us to recreate that explanation style, so we rewrote this is the form of a narrative and found as many ways to push the design style beyond where we had it before as possible.
The Result
What you see above was a major win for everyone involved, and we can’t wait to make the next one :).
Product Video - PriceHubble
PriceHubble provides a platform dedicated to the development of data & explainable AI-driven real estate valuations and insights, globally.
The Challenge
PriceHubble came to us with a need for several sleek and sexy looking videos to cover many of their product offerings. The tricky thing about doing a lot of videos at the same time is that design standards of what defines “sleek and sexy” can change in an instant, resulting in one video feeling current, and the rest…not so much.
The Approach
To ensure we built this thing right, we decided to just nail down the first video seen above, and then if successful, we would build out a proposal for the following couple of videos. So in essence, the creativity of this solution was more in the proposal than anything else.
And see below for our various localized versions to ensure this video reached a wider audience.
Germany
Switzerland - French Speaking
France
Switzerland - German Speaking
The Results
The good news is that the PriceHubble team absolutely LOVED what we created, so stay tuned for what’s to come.