Scion’s new “Brand Manifesto”  campaign is the latest salvo of hip, colorful advertising meant to strike a chord with the Toyota brand’s young demographic. The pitch for Scion in general is “vehicle as self-expression,” and Simon Needham, co-founder and creative director at the creative agency ATTIK (San Francisco, CA), was tasked with figuring out ways to convey the personality of three different Scion models on TV, online, in print, and in out-of-home media. ATTIK  co-directed two spots with production company Shilo and a third with Imaginary Forces. Rendering, compositing, and finishing were provided by Method Studios, with music by Face the Music. The first spot, “Explosion,”  promotes the Scion  xD with sharp visuals that echo certain characteristics of the car’s design. Watch the spot, below, then read our Q&As with Needham and Shilo co-founder and creative director Jose Gomez for more on their collaborative approach.

Simon Needham, co-founder/creative director ATTIK

What was your collaboration with Shilo as a co-director of “Explosion” like? How complete is the brief you bring to them, and how much are they expected to contribute creatively?

In this instance, because we did go out to a bunch of people, and we did have a number of different production companies bid on this campaign, our brief was fairly tight. It didn’t give them an enormous amount of room to be creative, but certainly there was enough room in there for them to be able to add their own twists to the concepts we presented.

We approached the companies we did because we know that they have a lot of creative talent. Therefore, we do look to them to contribute substantially to the concepts we provide.

You’re co-directing a third spot with Imaginary Forces. What influenced your choice of different production partners for different spots?

Our initial intention was to put the pitch out to a number of different production companies and then award all three spots to one company. We ended up splitting the project because we felt that the concept Imaginary Forces presented for Scion xB was by far the best approach, and therefore, although our initial intention was to retain all three projects with one production company, in this instance, we felt that we were getting the best creative by giving Imaginary Forces the opportunity to produce that one spot.

For these spots, you strove to use an animation style that would communicate something about the characteristics of the car. Can you name any animated works that have inspired you and influenced your thinking along those lines?

From ATTIK’s perspective, it’s definitely just an idea that we came up with; I don’t think there has been any outside inspiration. We actually struggled to find any references to support our concepts in the briefs we provided to production companies. I honestly don’t believe that we have been inspired by other work in relation to these particular projects.

Also, there were a number of things that we had to incorporate into each spot. First, the graphics, animation styles and fonts used in each one are customized to match the unique brand proposition of each model. For this campaign, there are also particular manifestos attributed to each model. Within each spot, we also set out to incorporate over a dozen customized cars. As you can see, by the time we sorted the things we needed to do, when it came to then producing the actual spots, the vision was already fairly complete.

How important is music to this message, and how do you home in on the right sound for a spot or a campaign?

Without question, music is an integral part of the concept of this campaign and every Scion campaign we’ve done. In this case, once again, each element of music was designed to support the individual vehicle’s proposition, as well as supporting the overarching music direction that Scion as a brand is following at this time. We have always taken into account that Scion as a brand has a very specific and definitive music direction going on at the time of a production, and aimed to tie in any genres of music within our productions to the types of music that Scion is promoting at events, through their cross-promotions, and so on. Specifically, we determine what that genre or that style of music is at the time, and then we produce a piece of music that supports that.

For example, with the xB, it’s a boxy car, so we wanted the music to be sort of boxy in its sound. The xD, we wanted to be more aggressive in the style of music. For tC, we wanted that sound to be slick and sporty. So, each Brand Manifesto campaign spot is going to have a sound design and music treatment developed to support the attitude and established style of the individual car.

This was an integrated campaign that included online, print and out-of-home media components. What are the trends in technology and media usage (mobile, broadband, videogaming, etc) that might extend future campaigns in new directions?

I think that social media is currently and will continue to be an important additional element to any marketing campaign. Being able to communicate with people by Twitter, Facebook, on blogs, and those types of tools is obviously an area that people are much more focused on now than ever before. And today, mobile ties right in with social networking. Increasing numbers of people are accessing websites and social media sites on their mobile phones.

Many people try to differentiate TV from web from cell phones, but that line is getting blurrier as we move forward. At the end of the day, regardless of the size of the screen, the bottom line is we’re watching stuff on all kinds of different monitors now, but it all goes back to the same piece of content that we’re watching.

From there, generally speaking, we consider that new technologies are cool for a minute, but they soon just become another platform. We’re always looking for new technologies, but more importantly, we’re always trying to make sure that the idea is good, and it hits the right market in the right ways.

You’re known for sending messages to youthful demographics. Is it challenging to design a “young” campaign that doesn’t seem calculated or condescending?

I think it is challenging to effectively reach and engage young people, depending upon who you are and what world you live in. However, I also believe that, just as some people can draw or write or edit, where others can’t, there are some people that just have a knack or an ability to recognize credible content, versus something that a young audience might judge as being contrived. A lot of marketing to young people isn’t necessarily something that you can learn. Instead, I think it’s inherent to the individual. Some people just have the ability to recognize and produce credible, cool work.

Certainly with ATTIK, if we want to blow our own trumpet about anything, it’s that we are pretty good at communicating at a level that young people recognize and accept as being credible. That is what ATTIK’s talent has turned out to be. We are good at marketing to young people.

With Scion, their goal is to communicate with young people, and we feel that Scion has been phenomenal at recognizing the need to communicate in a credible manner to with that audience in order to remain accepted by them. Also, clearly, Scion has the ability to recognize what’s credible and what’s not.

Jose Gomez, co-founder/creative director, Shilo

As a co-director of “Explosion” and “Streaks,” what was Shilo’s input on the project like? How much were you able to contribute, creatively?

We’ve worked with global creative agency ATTIK for several years and have built a great collaborative relationship in the process. Unlike most agencies, Creative Director Simon Needham of ATTIK takes a much more active role in conceptualizing the creative and the direction of the spot. Because of ATTIK’s level of involvement, we feel the final film benefits from all the love and turns out even better in the end. Like most projects, the agency comes to us with a loose concept – it’s the starting point we work from and, as we move forward, build a narrative and refine the idea. In the case of the Scion xD and tC spots, it’s really been a team effort all the way through the project. We’ve worked extremely well together over the years and it’s always cool to build on our existing relationship.

What was the experience of working with Attik on one end of the project and Method on the other? Was this an unusual collaboration compared to your normal work process?

It was a bit of a departure from our normal process but overall it was a really smooth experience. We worked with ATTIK setting the look and refining the narrative at the start. Then we did the co-direction, design, editorial and animation all here at Shilo. We then showed Method how we wanted the spot to look from the design of the concept through still renders. Finally we worked with Method on the rendering and composite.

How was the vision for the very specific animation style articulated, and what was the key to correctly executing on that vision?

It was most important that the animation reflect the personality of the car and also a sense of individuality, as described by ATTIK. So for instance the visual tonality of the Scion xD is very angular and aggressive so we wanted the animation to take on a similar character and personality. In development, we came up with the idea of exploding xD’s where each time one “explodes” a new xD design is revealed. Another aspect of the explosion was the shrapnel that flies off of the car. We envisioned it to be like angular shards peeling away from the scene, not just your typical debris. To get it the way we wanted we did a lot of research and development, making sure it would all animate perfectly while staying true to the personality of the car.

What about the process with Method? Was there a creative back-and-forth when it came to compositing and finishing, or was everything tightly defined before Method got to work?

Pretty much we had the look and feel defined ahead of time before we handed it off to Method. They are a great group to work with and they helped us a ton! They deserve a lot of credit for the high quality of the fit and finish of the spot. They rocked it on this job!

Were there any other special challenges involved, or individual elements of the finished project that you’re particularly proud of?

Every project has its challenges, but I would say that most of our challenges on these spots were not technical but in getting the tonality of the edit and animation just right. What we’re most proud of is that we got together with some very talented companies and made a great series of spots.

---

Full credits:

Scion xD “Explosion”
Length: :30
Debut Date: July 4, 2009

Client: Scion

Ad Agency: ATTIK
City/State: San Francisco, CA
Creative Director, Broadcast Spot Co-Director: Simon Needham
Associate Creative Directors: Ron Lim, Stan Zienka

Production Company: Shilo
Director: Simon Needham (ATTIK) and Shilo
Creative Director: Jose Gomez
Associate Creative Director: Evan Dennis
Lead Designers: Evan Dennis, Jose Gomez
3D Animation: Cody Smith, Jesse Franklin, Henning Koczy, Gene Arvan
Editor: Adam Bluming
Production Coordinator: Katlin Bradley
Producer: Jake Hibler
Executive Producer: Santino Sladavic

VFX and Finishing: Method Studios
City/State: Bicoastal, USA
Senior Executive Producer: Gabby Gourier
Producer: Leighton Greer
Visual Effects Supervisor: Chris Nichols
Compositing Supervisor / Lead Compositor: Chris Bankoff
Flame Artist: Marguerite Cargill
Lighting Supervisor: Daniel Buck
CG Artists: Scott Metzger, Felix Urquiza, Alexander Lee, Didier Levy, Dave Carlson, Erik Lee
Nuke Compositors: Ryan Raith, Jake Maymudes
Coordinator: Lauren Haggard

Music and Sound Design: Face The Music
City/State: Bicoastal, UA
Executive Producer: Adam Joseph
Composer/Sound Designer: Matthew Kratz
Additional Sound Designer: Michael Schmidt
Mixer: David Carden