Concept to Completion - Making 2D Photographs Appear 3D
Purdue Federal Credit Union needed a new television campaign to replace their long history of institutional marketing greatly influenced by celebrity endorsement – which was certainly effective and popular in their local market. However, given the growing public discontent with large national banks and financial institutions, the time was right to replace the current endorsement-focused message with a campaign geared toward the individual people financial institutions serve and their roads to financial security, regardless of their stage in life.
Therefore, our goal was to position Purdue Federal as a trusted financial partner that could serve as Greater Lafayette's best financial resource in such unsettling times.
The creative challenge was to find a way to communicate these core values in a unique and authentic manner.
We had already initiated "My Road" print concepts which placed a heavy emphasis on the credit union members themselves and their financial paths in life. Their "road" represented the direction of their personal financial journey. Now it was up to us to adapt the road concept to television and combine it with vital themes of partnership and trust.
As we began to brainstorm, lifestyle photographs emerged as a means to visually communicate this. By emphasizing people living life at various stages (i.e., graduation, home ownership, retirement), we would again be putting the credit union members in the spotlight ahead of the institution. The idea would also fit well with the existing "My Road" metaphor we had already established. To further reinforce the theme, we decided to feature literal roads in each photograph to lend the analogy a visual component.
In discussing how we would transition from one photo to the next, we eventually decided on the concept of having these photographs spread out on a cluttered kitchen table or desk, surrounded by items that would reinforce the theme of each particular photo. The overall effect would imply that perhaps the photos have slowly collected on a family's table over time and gotten mixed in with other items commonly found there, like keys, glasses, coffee mugs, etc. This image motif was ideal because it brought the story into the members' homes, making their lives the centerpiece of the warm message.
As the concept evolved, we employed a motion graphics effect to add visual interest by creating the illusion that each photograph would "come alive" as though the camera were moving slowly through the 3D space of the frozen scene at the moment each photo was taken. While the end result is attractive and compelling, creating the effect is time-consuming because it involves compositing together scores of pieces from various photographs in such a way that they all appear to be part of one seamless, common-looking photograph. Under the hood, however, each photograph is actually a complex three-dimensional scene that a digital camera can literally fly through. In simple terms, one could imagine each finished photograph as a digital diorama made up of several cardboard cut-outs that the camera can interact with.
The final hurdle was creating the right tone, which mostly involves choosing the appropriate audio. For the narration, we needed a genuine voice with a quality and style listeners would trust. The voice had to evoke thoughts of a kind father or grandfather who is casually chatting about life and memories. For the music, we explored everything from classic rock to jazz. Our final choice was an upbeat folk track that fit right in the context of all the other pieces.
In the end, all of the individual elements worked together to allow the final video to reinforce our objective of conveying a message of security and trust. Feel free to check out the finished :60 TV spot below.
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