“Personally, I’m not sure that I want to drive a cute little car. I’m much more comfortable in a devious little car,” said Simon Needham with a laugh. And the new campaign he helped develop for the launch of the new Scion xD five-door urban vehicle reflects those sentiments, as well as the vehicle’s customizability, in a gutsy way. “Scion is launching a new car in the compact car segment where the majority of the small cars that are out there are marketed in terms of them being fun, cheeky, cute and that sort of stuff,” explained Needham, co-founder and group creative director of bicoastal ATTIK. “In typical Scion form, we tend to go against the grain and be more irreverent; we don’t mind being bad.
“So we positioned the xD as a deviant little badass.”
Throughout the campaign, the xD’s partners in crime are gremlin-like characters aptly called the little Deviants. Recently to launch the campaign–which also includes a minisite, print ads and guerilla marketing–targeted moviegoers were introduced to the little Deviants in an animated :60 cinema spot entitled “Fable of the Deviants,” underscoring the xD’s non-conformist personality. In the ad, produced by bicoastal Shilo, the “Book of Deviants” opens and shows audiences a bland, colorless world inhabited by boring Sheeple, conformist clones who paint the world and its inhabitants gray. The xD rides into town unleashing the little Deviants to take down the Sheeple. “The car is the thing that releases the Deviants within the cities that are being taken over by the Sheeples and it also releases the deviant within you,” said Needham.
Because of the look of the xD–it is stocky and tough as opposed to cute with its wide stance, thick muscular body, accentuated wheel flares and large tires–Needham and the client felt the narrative story could really help establish the attitude and identity of the xD since it’s a new model from Scion.
Consumers can participate in the story at www.littledeviant.com, which ATTIK created inhouse. “The Book of Deviants” is introduced using the same pop-up style of the in-cinema and print ads. Visitors can join the Deviants in customization and help them take back a city from the Sheeple, all in the spirit of replacing dreary compliance with vibrant creativity. The interactive adventure consists of seven “chapters” to explore. Visitors can help rid buildings, alleyways and sewers of Sheeple and track down those who sought refuge in a park. Then they can bring the Deviant Factory to life using blood of the Sheeple. After taking back the city, users can visit the Deviant Chop Shop, (I tricked out my very own xD) and print it out as 3D cut-and-fold model. Visitors can also view the in-cinema ad and meet the Deviants, as well as customize personal photos with Deviants and Sheeple.
“Our Little Deviant website takes the format of an off-beat, interactive pop-up book for mature, young adults. We have entertaining activities to engage visitors and show them the xD’s rebellious attitude towards an ordinary and uninteresting world. We put a lot of thought into crafting the storyline and bringing it to life with outstanding animation,” commented Scion VP Mark Templin. “Scion is always trying to push the envelope with new marketing executions. This will more than just pique the interest of creative young adults. We’re confident that they’ll be drawn into it and better understand the significance of personalization to us.”
The outstanding animation on the site and in the spot can be particially credited to emerging artist Dave Correia who ATTIK commissioned character illustrations from. “We developed characters inhouse, but we felt we wanted to be authentic in terms of the execution, so we approached Dave to refine the detail on the characters and put his style onto those characters,” explained Needham. “We picked Dave because of his experience and talent and the tone of his work. It sat well with the look and feel we were trying to establish with what we were doing.”
Richard Stanners was selected to do the voiceover on the website and in the spot to complement their look and feel.
The ATTIK team really wanted to capture a cinematic feel for the site, so they fleshed out the concepts and illustrated the characters with pen and ink. Then they developed Photoshop comps of each chapter’s set and used the comps to create the storyboards in Illustrator. The characters were set in mid-action to capture the spirit of each chapter. The Deviants were modeled in Maya from the original artist’s sketches and the 3D characters were painted in Z-Brush, with custom toon shaders made in Maya to complete their look. High-res versions of the comps were created and applied to the sets which were modeled, rigged, animated and lit in Maya.
Flash development ran concurrently with the animation production. Two Flash applications were built allowing the user to create, print and download their own customized Little Deviant photos. The games and the main Flash shell were developed with early renders from Maya used for timing and testing. Individual character animations from Maya were processed in Photoshop and brought into Flash for integration into the games. Video post-production was done in After Effects, for final compositing and additional effects. The completed video chapters and sound assets were finally stitched together and made interactive in Flash.
Marketing to a new generation
This is not the first unconventional campaign ATTIK created for Scion to attract the attention of urban, trendsetting youth. To introduce the 2008 Scion xB, ATTIK created the www.want2bsquare.com web experience and campaign. For the xD campaign, the agency felt it made sense to launch it in-cinema rather than on television. “We always try to give people the opportunity to discover this stuff rather than swamp the market with it. That’s part of the benefit to young people–to be able to find it as opposed to having it thrown in their face,” Needham said.
Credits
Client Scion Agency ATTIK, San Francisco and Los Angeles Simon Needham, group creative director, Wayne Hanson, creative director; Greg Coffin, art director; Michael Brenner, copywriter; Robert Karns, retoucher; Michele Morris, senior producer; Jay Cortez, producer; Charlie Adams, account director; Andy Giles, senior account manager Production (cinema spot) Shilo (Bicoastal) Jose Gomez / Andre Stringer, creative directors; Shilo, director; Jose Gomez, Tom Green, lead design; Cody Smith, lead 3D design and animation; Billy Maloney, Nate Davies, Blake Guest, 3D animation; Kiel Figgins, Chris Mead, Jorma Auburn, Bren Wilson, Christopher Adams, Richard Lico, Dax Pallotta, Joe Jones, character animation; Jose Gomez, Tom Green, Jon Wu, Marco Giampaolo, compositors; Mike Goubeaux, editor; Jake Hibler, producer; Tracy Chandler, Santino Sladavic, executive producer Visual Effects Lola VFX, Santa Monica Thomas Nittman, VFX/Flame Supervisor; Edson Williams, VFX/Flame Artist Telecine R!OT, Santa Monica Siggy Ferstl, colorist; Rhubie Jovanov, executive producer Music/Sound Design Face the Music Santa Monica, New York Adam Joseph, executive producer; John Sponsler and Tom Gire, composers; Michael Schmidt, sound design; Ed Ma, additional sounds Final Mix eleven, Santa Monica DJ Fox-Engstrom, executive producer; Jeff Fuller, mixer; Luis Rosario, assistant mixer Voiceover Artist Richard Stanners Production (littledeviant.com) ATTIK
