EA SPORTS & Adidas: an Explosive Collab

Why would we fire Marcelo into space? Or melt Dybala into liquid? Why command a team of leopards or absorb the power of a star?

It all comes down to attention.

When we met the client for the first time they were interested in complex post-production and choreographed action sequences. They were thinking about epic camera moves and photorealistic morphing techniques.

Naturally, this was music to our ears. But as we learned more about our audience we found ourselves pulling in a different direction.

Our target demographic skewed young, male and extremely online. They spent many hours a day on social networks and chased limited edition streetwear from the likes of Supreme and Palace. What they didn’t do, for any considerable length of time, is pay attention.

This raised some strategic questions. Does photorealistic VFX add value to single-view Instagram stories? Do people want to watch complex action sequences on a mobile? Does any of this work in 1:1 or 9:16? And most importantly, is this the right approach for our client?

With these questions in mind we began to craft a different strategic approach — one that sacrificed realism and intricacy in favour of energy and immediacy.

By making our films bright and modular with high-impact visuals we knew we could stand out on busy social networks, retain the attention of a fickle audience segment and scale our films across a variety of platforms.

So we worked with the client to develop some wild visual effects and deploy them in a way that would deliver maximum reach. We think the results speak for themselves.

You can view more of Oliver’s work via his Creator Profile and get in contact with our VFX team regarding any upcoming projects here.