Problem: Logitech APAC had won the Exclusive Sponsorship of Turandot and needed a Branding Motion Graphics to be shown during the two intermissions of the Live Opera Turandot. Logitech APAC’s Head of Marketing in Hong Kong contacted me to see if I can quickly create an exciting and engaging 15-sec branding motion graphics to be shown during China’s 60th National Day Celebration inside Beijing’s Birdnest Olympic Stadium during Zhang Yimou’s Live Opera, Turandot. It would be two-nights of sold-out crowd!

Creative Brief: Their Creative Brief required a 15-sec Branding Motion Graphics that showcases their Consumer Electronic products such as Speaker systems, wireless keyboards, web camera, etc. but the branding video must show customer “delight” and the products “magical”. The audience is anticipated to be the top 8% of China’s elite class between the ages of 25-45 years old.

Challenges: 1). They had already commissioned a local HK motion designer who had finished the design but delivered it late, and the design didn’t meet Logitech APAC Marketing Team’s creative brief requirement that it convey customer “delight” and product “magic”! So this leaves Logitech APAC to find a new solution with only 2 weeks to create the 15-sec branding video. Logitech HQ in California, US, stepped in and required APAC to use their primary design partner, based in London UK. So they decided to commission all three design firms to design and deliver on time, then Logitech APAC would vote to use the one they find most effective.

2). The second challenge was that since it was now very close to the final due date for the Live Opera, there were no pre-approved marketing material or messaging to use. But they did have approved photos of their products that can be used, just no marketing message to support the photo assets.

3). The third challenge, last minute they learned from the Turandot team that the branding video now has to be 30-seconds long instead of 15-seconds! This means that I have to come up with a “Concept” for 30-secs, which is the length of a commercial! (I could float the photos around for 15-seconds, but it would not make sense for 30-secs without a theme/concept”!!

Creative Solution:

1) Research: I started by searching on YouTube how people were using Logitech products and to my surprise, I found a massive fan-base following one of the product photos they’d sent me — the Satellite Speaker system with a big sub-woofer in a square box. This obsession with the sub-woofer sound system, specifically the “vibration” of the membrane was evident by the numerous videos showing how to remove the grill off the sub-woofer box, then use a hair dryer to heat the glue of the grill until you can remove it from the front of the box to access the thin membrane. Then the fan-base would video the thin membrane while they played very heavy-base music so the membrane would vibrate powerfully for their videos!

Voilá!! I found my “concept” using the “vibration” of the sub-woofer as the foundation of my 30-sec branding motion graphics!

2) Human Factor Design: I re-read the Creative Brief from Logitech APAC a few times and realized they were off on the age of the audience. Growing up with Asian parents, I had a hunch that the 8% elite would certainly want to bring their family members to this event to celebrate together China’s 60th National Day celebration. So I created a solution for ages 8-80!!

This gave me the idea that some of the older generation would not know what these products were because it would just be black boxes flying around the screen. So I thought why not just use the exact words of each photo (keyboard, speaker, etc) to show what each photo is as they vibrate on the screen. I asked the APAC Marketing team to send me words in Chinese characters to use. But since I’m illiterate in Chinese and don’t have Chinese software on my computer, the only way to use the Chinese characters was if I converted them to “graphics”….Then once these Chinese Characters became “graphic design elements”, I could "move/animate” them along with the product photos so the older and younger generations would be able to see what the products were AND I could create a “fun and delightful interaction” in the 30-seconds.

Another Human Factor in my design is in using very large and clear images, strong beat of music, big Chinese Characters along with powerful movement of graphics for this reason - I anticipated people in the audience during the two intermissions would be getting up to use the restroom or buy beverages and snacks…I did not anticipate that they will sit still to watch the video, but instead on their way out of their seats to go somewhere. Hence using strong visual and sound design elements helps to capture their attention when they are busy doing other things or moving.

This worked out better than I thought…but I’d learned that I had broken Logitech’s Branding/Identity rule, which is to not let any design element touch their logo and in fact must be kept at a certain centimeters from the logo!

So I had to break this identity rule, because to create the magical and delightful feeling, I wanted a person to jump up and tickle their logo!! Logitech agreed!!

My design here won the final decision out of the 3 submissions, and my 30-sec branding video was shown live inside Bird Nest Stadium!