CGI world created for Mercedes!

When Cygnus agency asked for a city made of home appliances and work tools to look like buildings for the new campaign for Mercedes, our first reaction was how on earth to make this work? In fact it turns out CGI was the perfect tool for realising the creative vision of art director Stephen Sellick.

“It’s a first for me to create an entire city out of appliances and it sometimes proved challenging to get the balance right between the object representing a large building and looking recognisable as a device as well, especially when lots of objects are sitting together to create a panoramic cityscape,” noted lead CGI artist Simon Nankivell. “However we feel the final images stay true to the original concept as well as looking believable.”

One of the greatest benefits for the agency, Cygnus, is that we could offer cost effective assets that could be used across a range of different media. This enabled the agency to roll out the campaign in outdoor, press and online media without having to re-create any components. Simon said ”This is the true beauty of creating a vision in CGI.”

From these assets the agency were also able to create interchangeable elements to be used on Mercedes dedicated website. These elements include changing the type of wheels and colour of the vans, to the cityscape backdrop changing seamlessly from day to night. We are really proud that we helped to contribute to a website that is truly at the forefront of digital interaction.

An in-depth video of the making of the campaign, which includes commentary from the team here at Happy Finish and the creatives at Cygnus, can be viewed on our video page.