04.05.2010
Playful, Animated Campaign for HealthPartners
Sometimes the most complex concepts are most effectively conveyed with simple yet captivating imagery, as CRASH+SUES recently demonstrated with a crisp, clean style in the fully-animated broadcast campaign for HealthPartners out of Preston Kelly/Minneapolis.
The agency’s goal was to create a commercial package that built upon the success of the hip, engaging characters that were created for HealthPartners’ print and billboard campaign by London-based artist, Adrian Johnson. When it came time to bring these endearing characters to life, Preston Kelly sought out Sean Hall, CRASH+SUES animation director - who previously teamed with the agency on a campaign for Mall of America, to create a series of playful scenarios that brought home the campaign’s message, “A new way to look at healthcare.”
"This was a great project because of the high level of collaboration that the agency afforded us." Hall explains. "They came to us with the original boards, and gave us the creative freedom to expand upon them with our own innovative interpretation and creative use of technology. It was a great experience."
The C+S animator was tasked with turning around four spots in approximately two months; the deadline called for the development of some innovative, time saving approaches to the traditional animation process.
”While Johnson’s illustrative style lent itself to a more cut-out style of animation, we wanted to have a little more freedom to animate the characters beyond rotating and moving static elements,” notes Hall. “We brought another dimension to the animation with a technique that integrated the cut-out method with elements built out of masks that we created in After Effects. This allowed us to modify and animate the shape of objects frame-by-frame which provided the control and flexibility needed to maximize the impact of the spots."
In “Open Enrollment,” the voiceover asks viewers to “imagine having a healthcare plan that helps you to be healthy with medical and dental options that encourage healthy living.” The spot opens with a freckle-faced boy standing at a sink vigorously washing his hands as the word ‘Wash’ appears onscreen and soap bubbles rise all around him. The bubbles fill the screen and float to the nose of a terrier on an outing with a stylish lady as the word ‘Walk’ appears. The dog chases around at the bubble, his rippling leash evoking the rumbling stomach of a mustached man who muses over whether to eat a banana or a chocolate bar. They spin around his head as the word ‘Choose’ appears. The chocolate bar pops and disappears as the banana turns into a crescent moon and stars above a sleepy woman yawning in bed. The word ‘Relax’ materializes as she pulls up the covers, then the scenes spins out of frame with a turnstile effect. The spot ends with a doctor hopping across the screen as the HealthPartners logo grows under his feet.
“Individual” examines HealthPartners affordable individual plans with a cast of animated characters continually linked by shapes, which transform into different objects. The mustached man we saw previously is now knitting with red yarn; he drops a skein that becomes a laptop cord for a young lady bent over her computer. Her cursor becomes an hourglass that flips sideways, turning into a woman hoisting free weights up and down. As she rotates, the circular weight at the end of the barbell is transforms into a coin; it rolls on the floor passed another woman who deposits it in her piggy bank. The happy piggy trots away to rejoin the mustached man who holds up a wee little red sweater that he has just finished knitting. The piggy bank, now clad in his red pull-over, hops across the HealthPartners logo as it swings into frame.
The “Medicare” commercial takes a slightly different approach following a single character, an elderly bird that escapes his cage and sets out into the world, now free to choose his own doctor. Hall also lent his talents as an animator to the “Flu” PSA sponsored by HealthPartners and Minnesota’s Hennepin and Ramsey counties. The spot’s mission is to educate the public about the “simple things” people can do to fight the flu – hand washing, covering a sneeze, getting vaccinated – with endearing characters such as the little boy from “Open Enrollment” standing at the sink, a dainty woman using a hanky and a man dancing with a giant-scale vaccine syringe. CRASH+SUES online editor Mark Anderson, assisted by Matthew Kroese, performed the finish on the campaign.
AD AGENCY: Preston Kelly/Minneapolis: Director of Broadcast Production: Anne Swarts, Creative Directors: Peter Tressel,
Art Directors: Peter Tressel, Anne Taylor (“Medicare”), Copywriter: Charlie Tournat. Terry Thomas (“Medicare”), Illustration: Adrian Johnson/London
ANIMATION + POST: CRASH+SUES/Minneapolis: Executive Producer: Donna Drewick, Associate Producer: Stephanie Szeremeta, Online Editor: Mark Anderson, Online Assist, Matthew Kroese, Lead Animator: Sean Hall, Animator: Bret Farley.
MUSIC + SOUND DESIGN: In the Groove/MinneapolisL Music Producer: Darren Drew, Engineer: Brian Reidinger.
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