Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/426326
www.postmagazine.com 31 POST NOVEMBER 2014 dvertising on the Internet has defi nitely gained momentum. "While budgets are still generally higher for TV spots than for online fi lms, the gap is lessening and advertisers are beginning to understand the amount of care and attention that needs to be invested if their 'content' is to be seen at all," says Andrew Watson, creative direc- tor with Amsterdam-based Minivegas. "On the fl ip side, it's actually an ex- tremely liberating time for fi lmmakers and advertisers," he reports. "Huge TV budgets are no longer necessary to make awe-inspiring fi lms, and failure needn't break the bank, so we have the chance to experiment and create more." Sounds like a win-win situation. FLAVOR — ARROW ELECTRONICS Arrow Electronics readily admits to being "the biggest company nobody ever heard of," but its innovative B-to-B ad campaign from Karsh Hagan/Denver should change that. Appearing on Ar- row's Website and YouTube channel, on big screens in Major League ball parks, at the Arrow Global Strategic Summit, and in an internal campaign to Arrow's 16,500 employees worldwide, eight spots target the company's eight core areas of busi- ness: aerospace and defense, intelligent systems, lighting, data center, power management, value recovery, the cloud and mobility. The spots convey Arrow's "Five Years Out" brand message by bookending live action scenes of youngsters and engineers telling imaginative stories of technology as seen through the eyes of a fi ve year-old and animated in an array of styles by LA-based Flavor (www. fl avor.tv), a recent addition to the Cutters Studios family. "The agency envisioned diff erent styles of animation, and we were excited by the possibilities," says Brad Tucker, executive creative director at Flavor. "The animation style changes according to the journey the kids are taking, but there's the same hierarchy in all the spots so that structure keeps the campaign together." Flavor assembled a team of talented artists for the project. "We consulted on- set for the live-action shoots but waited to see what was captured from the kids before fi guring out how to animate to it," says Darren Jaff e, Flavor's executive producer. "Because we weren't limited to :30, we could let the stories tell them- selves: Some spots are :45, some are over a minute." The stories had to tell themselves wordlessly, though. "The spots were in- ternational, so there we had to come up with visual representations that everyone could understand," Tucker explains. Among Tucker's favorites are For- est, for Arrow's lighting business, and Dragon, for the mobility sector. In Forest, a little boy is walking through the dark woods when his imagination gets the better of him. "It has a 3D character to it, but we didn't really have the budget for full 3D, so we mixed 3D with cel anima- tion and After Eff ects compositing, and it all came together beautifully," he says. Dragon was entirely cel animated, off ering "upbeat and exciting illustrations that are lots of fun," he adds. Jaff e especially likes Rocket, for Arrow's aerospace business, because it depicts "the spirit of what we want sci- entists and engineers to be: It's about the dreamers and how to make their dreams reality." In the spot, Flavor opted to mix "cel, 3D and traditional 2D motion graph- ics with seamless transitions so nothing is disparate or unnecessary," he says. The spots were shot and animated A BY CHRISTINE BUNISH Arrow's latest campaign appears in a range of outlets. Flavor created eight spots (far left & above) that target the company's core business areas. ADVERTISING & THE INTERNET