Building Hype for Product Launches with CGI

So you’re a product marketer and your NPD pipeline has spun out the latest offering that you can bring to market. The steps leading up to launch demand a creative strategy that reveals enough about the product to engage your audience and create excitement, without giving everything away – in other words, building hype for product launches.

It’s a time when you can let your creative energies flow, designing marketing assets in interesting ways to create hype, enticing your audience and preparing them for that all-important date where they can actually learn about, and buy, the shiny new product.

In this blog we’re going to look at 3 ways you can approach CG production to ensure you’re equipped with the right content strategy when building hype for product launches.

Hide in Plain Sight

Sometimes you don’t want to show off the whole product, especially if you have some brand equity across your product range and your audience has an idea of what might be coming. In this way you can get people guessing what’s coming and spark a conversation.

This was the case for the work we did for the launch of the Novablast™ 4 – the latest in a line of running shoes from ASICS. The Novablast is a popular product in its own right, with a large base of customers who have enjoyed the previous shoes in the range. For ASICS, they wanted to build hype in a way that didn’t reveal much about the shoe at all – very much a tease of something big about to get released while keeping the audience guessing exactly what.

While the asset list for launch included a master 45 second film, with a number of different cut downs and formats for use across a variety of channels, the 5 second teaser used dramatic lighting to hide most of the shoe and got the conversation started about what exactly was ‘coming soon’ ahead of the launch. There were plenty of guesses as to what this might be across ASICS’ social channels and the launch, when it came soon after, revealed the true identity of the product with a bang!

Alternatively, it can be practical to use a section (or sections) of the master edit to create these teaser clips ahead of launch. As long as these are planned in at the earlier stages, shots can be built into the master that work well to create content that can tease a product launch. This can often be the first moments or separate clips from the master edit.

Our work for the launch of Lucky Saint’s Hazy IPA shows how this works. The first few seconds of the master are lit in a way that doesn’t reveal the product entirely but allows the viewer to recognise there’s a can being held by marble hands.

Lucky Saint then used this section of the film with the line ‘your prayers answered’ to grab the attention of the audience, enticing them to wonder which prayers and how have they been answered? “The time has come, excited to see what it could be”, “I don’t know what’s happening but I’m excited 😍” were just a couple of the comments on their socials – the exact kind of response of intrigue and hype any marketer wants from their hype content!

Show but don’t tell

You may want to hero your product for its sleek design and unique functionality, leaning heavily on creative expression and pushing beyond reality with how you visualise it. It’s about showing the product without detailing every aspect of how it works – aspirational content that stands out and reveals a compelling visual narrative around your product.

Our work for the XIM Nutrition System is a great example of this. The hype/tease film was created in isolation from the main launch content and was able to expressively showcase the product with flair, energy and excitement without going into too much detail about how it works. The dramatic lighting hides and reveals elements of the product; an energetic burst of the powder gives a ‘wow’ moment to the film and the final shot with the nutrition shake pouring from the product nods at the functionality and purpose.

This created an air of intrigue and mystery around this innovative product, which was new to the market, driving people to the website to sign up for more information ahead of the launch date.

Keep it still

Still images have a place when building hype for product launches across both digital and print channels.

Our work for the Chilly’s Series 2 range included teaser shots that were dramatically rim lit, revealing just enough to showcase the new bottle and coffee cup without giving too much away. These were used across social channels to build hype in the run up to their launch. After launch, there was a scrolling animation on their website, fully configurable assets for their store and a host of films for use across socials, but the stills laid the foundation for the launch content.

Similarly, for the Royal Enfield Interceptor, we used teaser shots, with more components revealed each day on the run-up to launch, to get their audience excited about the new model, without revealing the whole motorbike and the overall design. These were used on socials and within trade magazines to tease the model ahead of its launch to great effect. Like Chilly’s, there was a range of content that showcased the Royal Enfield after launch, but the shots of the engine gave enough away to build hype ahead of the highly anticipated launch.

Plan your creative content

Getting your audience engaged and hyped is paramount to achieving a successful launch. Using tease content to build anticipation, get the conversation started and pull in the community surrounding your brand makes for more impactful product marketing on the whole. Leveraging CGI to get the most out of your assets ahead of launch is all about the plan and execution.

How we can help

At Wonder Vision, we work closely with brand marketing and agency creative teams to blend our design and VFX to bring their CGI campaigns to life.

If you’re planning a product launch in the future, get in touch with [email protected] for a chat and see how we can help hype it up!