PWID

(PEOPLE WHO INJECTED DRUGS)

CASE STUDY 004 - ANIMATED MOTION GRAPHIC PSA CAMPAIGN - ABBVIE

What was the need?

Our client needed an eye-catching and evocative but tactful and subtle PSA ad campaign for a particular audience, recovered injected drug users, who have an increased risk for Hepatitis C (Hep C). It needed to lead to a CTA to seek more information and care, but be hopeful, serious, and respectful of a population who we know has already gone through an intense journey and come out the other side. 

These needed to be video ad spots for YouTube and other online platforms preroll and midroll placement, and come in both short (15 seconds) and unskippable (6 seconds) lengths.

What was the role?

I was the visual designer, concept designer, co-writer, storyboard artist, animator, and director.

How did it happen?

Preproduction and Concepting

The key challenge of this project lay in the fact that the subject matter, the increased risk of a serious disease in those who had previously been regular users of recreational injected drugs, and therefore the history of our key demographic, was very difficult and painful to discuss. But, with that challenge, we had the anchor that our client was offering not just help but a potential cure to this problem–a fundamental angle of hope. That’s a great base to build on.

When working on the concept for this piece, I designed three looks with our lead copywriter on the project, whom I also worked on the messaging with. We landed with the client on a series of motion graphics ads built around a sleek, abstracted line graphic of a syringe needle, thin line work accents, and bold text, further utilizing negative space, stark black and white lighting, and 3D camera moves and infographics to tell bold messages in each of the three spots.

Design and Production

I storyboarded and animated the entirety of this campaign solo, primarily utilizing a combination of Cinema 4D, After Effects, and Illustrator. The boarding process uses pre-builds from AE and C4D to lock up shots and make the seamless transition from board to animatic to final. I also cast and directed our voice talent for the project. From concept to realization this is one of the least altered and most one-to-one projects I’ve ever produced. However, it also presented challenges due to the small team, and at times stretched us thin, though all parties were thrilled with the final product. Given their use as video preroll and midroll on social platforms, the videos were also designed to work completely without audio as well as unmuted, optimizing their reach.

Results

The client got the campaign out to markets throughout the US and English-speaking North America at large, seeing great interaction and response to the CTA in the range of 100K+ hits, and continues to expand work with the company as a whole, including further video work and work on their HCV initiatives.

Takeaways

This project showed both the benefits and pitfalls of immense creative control in only a few hands, and it was a great opportunity to take a unique, impactful, and dramatic visual approach to the space of a serious topic. It was also a perfect lesson in how, in both aesthetics and production, simplicity is not the same as simplistic and a minimalist vision isn’t always most easily accomplished with a minimal crew. Simple can be very good, but very good is rarely easy.