The JWT/Paris campaign for Nestlé’s Kit Kat, which will eventually send two lucky contest winners on a trip to outer space, began with an animated 3D viral video ad that suggests the ultimate prize after a frazzled employee eats a Kit Kat bar and rides an elevator to the top of his building, which provides an inspirational glimpse to the edge of the universe.
Ultimate Break Quest, the two minute fifty second video playing at www.kitkat.fr, YouTube and Daily Motion, which was produced by Akama Studio/Paris, repped by Wanda Productions/Paris, is the backbone of a campaign that introduces a new version of the familiar candy bar. “2008 may be the year of many things, one of them being the release of a new Nestlé’s Kit Kat bar,” said Stéphane Billard, the associate director at JWT/Paris. “It’s the first change of recipe since it was introduced in 1972.”
The agency introduces the new candy bar by focusing on the concept of a break. “Everyone has in mind a personal break, so we let them think about the ultimate break,” Billard said. “The spot is an invitation for them to take a break.”
The main character in the video, a young man hard at work at his desk, staring into his overwrought computer, decides to take a break. He walks down a hallway, past an array of interesting co-workers, from a pair of idealistic twins to a blonde bombshell who bends over as he walks by, until he reaches a Kit Kat vending machine. His eyes light up after he takes a bite and suddenly he is on an elevator riding to the top, where he is blinded by the light as the doors open. He smiles idealistically as the spot concludes.
The humor comes from the bizarre characters, the office worker having an oversized head and bulging eyes, who proceeds through the office with a forlorn look. “The hero should be fragile, stressed, but friendly,” said Alexandre Ada, Akama Studio’s art director. “Big eyes deliver more emotions.”
“All the animation was hand made, we didn’t use motion capture because we wanted to design a very specific style for the film and give more character to the acting,” he said. The hand drawn animations were rendered into film using Maya, Max, After Effects and Zbrush.
The film is the first phase of a campaign that will also run on TV with a shorter version and radio. Visitors to the site are invited to produce their own ultimate break videos. The producer of the best one, as well as the winner of an instant game on Kit Kat packaging, will win a trip to outer space, which will be provided by Rocketplane, an American company that flies an aerospace vehicle into space that reaches an altitude of 330,000 feet (60 miles).
The film began playing online Jan. 24. The TV campaign launches Feb. 15.
There seems to be two messages to the Ultimate Break Quest campaign. “Everyone can recognize the main character, we all know that kind of job is stressful and we know he needs a break, so we empathize with him,” Billard said. The second message is the idea of space travel, which the character’s journey provides. “The ultimate break links with space travel, it’s a good way of capturing people,” he said.
Review: Director Joe Carnahan’s “The Rip”
Lines between cop and criminal get murky in Joe Carnahan's "The Rip," a crime thriller set across one foggy Miami night, starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Damon and Affleck, of course, are so closely associated with Boston — most recently they produced the 2024 heist movie "The Instigators" there — that a detour to South Florida puts them, a little awkwardly, in an entirely different movie landscape. This is "Miami Vice" territory or Elmore Leonard Land, not Southie or "The Town." In "The Rip," they play Miami narcotics officers who come upon a cartel stash house that Lt. Dane Dumars (Damon) says may have $150,000 hidden in the walls. It turns out to be more than $20 million, though, and their mission immediately turns from a Friday afternoon smash-and-grab into an imminent siege where no one can be trusted. "The Rip," which debuts Friday on Netflix, is a lean and potent-enough neo-noir where almost all the characters are police officers, yet it's a mystery as to who's a good guy and who's not. It's a nifty and timely premise, even if "The Rip" literally tattoos its message across itself. When Dane sits down with the young woman (Sasha Calle) at the stash house who seems plausibly innocent, she looks at tattoos on his hands and asks what they mean. On one: "AWTGG": "Are we the good guys?" As much as the answer might seem a foregone conclusion in a movie starring Damon and Affleck, who are also producers, "The Rip" plays with and against type in ways that can keep you engrossed. (The cast also includes Teyana Taylor, Steven Yeun and Kyle Chandler.) However, the exposition is so light and hurried in "The Rip" that that's almost all it plays with. We know almost nothing about our characters outside of the action in the movie, making all the... Read More