Christmas greetings from IP Deutschland

As the year comes to a close, IP Deutschland sends out a charming Christmas message to customers, partners and employees. For the fourth time in a row, Elastique. created this greeting in the form of personalized videos and posters that were sent to over 15,000 recipients.

Happy family

This time the idea was born to send the Christmas greetings from the entire family of broadcasters with all its brands. We used the term ‘family’ quite literally and designed a character for each broadcaster. By creating small, lovable figures for each broadcaster we personified associated characteristics in a charming way.

To breathe new life into an established recurring procedure is a real challenge. With its fresh character-based approach, Elastique. has once again successfully made us not only stand out from our own previous Christmas initiatives, but also those of our competitors in a highly likeable way.

Tobias Guter,
Senior Brand Manager
Marketing IP Deutschland

Character development

The individual figures might seem minimalist, light-footed and amusing – but an immense amount of work has gone into them. We started off with pencil sketches, which gradually received accessories and a distinctive colour scheme. Subsequently we developed the builds of the individual figures: What type is it? How dynamic is it? How does it move? Only then all of the characters were modelled in 3D, textured extensively – i.e. surface textures were carefully added – and finally rigged. Essentially, 3D rigging is the process of creating a skeleton for a model that defines how it can and should move. Only then the actual animation process can begin.

Super RTL, Nitro, ntv, RTL, RTL Plus, IP Deutschland, VOX - all with their own faces

Animation

It takes extremely precise timing to animate a character within a relatively short time frame of around eight weeks. First of all, the music and sound layers – on which everything else is based on – have to be defined. An ‘animatic’, a type of slide show with music and sounds, is then cut from individual storyboard images so that an initial sense of the frame changes and movement speeds can be developed. In the next stage, the animatic is transferred to 3D objects whose initial movements are extremely rough and the camera movements are planned. This is followed by the animation of details, the lighting and the finish. The following video shows all of the stages in parallel: storyboard, animatic, final video.

Personalisation

This year’s Christmas greetings from IP were once again fully individualized, meaning that every recipient received a personalised email linking them to their very own video with the ability to download a personalised ‘movie poster’ with the best wishes of the family of broadcasters. By adjusting details the same video was also adapted for Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland and sent to thousands of recipients. The campaign generated an outstanding response: over 15,000 personalised videos were generated and viewed.