Making a good ad in general is already an art in itself, from knowing who you’re selling to and making it emotionally appealing to the timing and placement of an ad.
I don't wish to delve deeply into advertising in general; there are many more experts available for that. Today I want to take you on the journey of how we can make amazing fake out of home Ads (FOOH Ads).
Here’s a brief definition: Fake Out Of Home Ads are Ads that combine actual video footage with 3D elements, mostly showcasing a product in an absurd, close to reality, way.
In 2023 every week another FOOH Ad (also known as FAUX OOH) has gone viral. As of december 2023 a decent amounts of big brands like, Adidas, Samsung, Lenovo, Maybelline and even Apple jumped on this trend.
Without 3D-Elements
With 3D-Elements
What goes for every advertisement also counts for Fake Out Of Home Ads. People want creativity and originality. No matter if you’re an artist or a brand. It's worth spending a couple more hours on planning and designing the concept; it might take a surprising turn and end up going viral.
Strong visuals and effective design saturate social media, demanding that you distinguish yourself to truly make an impact. Use the first 1-3 seconds to grab the users attention by setting up the hook. Moreover spend time on details. Shadows, reflections, lighting and poor rotoscoping will give your video away although people won’t be able to put a finger on it. You don’t want your audience wandering what’s wrong with the video, you want them to be stunned and wonder how this looks so real, while knowing it’s not.
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2,4+ Mio Views, 40k Likes, 600+ comments and 2,8k Shares.
Understanding the viral potential of your Fake Out of Home Ads is paramount to their success. Consider this as the secret sauce that can propel your content to the far reaches of the internet. Viral potential isn't just a matter of luck; it's a calculated aspect of your FOOH Ads strategy. During the concept phase, invest time in dissecting your content and identifying what could make it go viral. Is it an emotionally stirring narrative, an unexpected twist, or a story that resonates with a broad audience? Perhaps it's a jaw-dropping visual effect that leaves viewers in awe. Deliberately place these elements within your video, strategically build up to them, or unleash them right from the beginning. Remember, while there's always a bit of luck involved in virality, meticulous planning and attention to the factors that drive sharing can significantly boost your FOOH Ads' chances of becoming the next internet sensation.
Now that we discussed the key elements of successful fake out of home ads, let’s walk through the process of creating one - or at least how we at rendersnek work.
Idea generation and brainstorming
It all starts with a meeting of the two parties - 3d animation studio & you - especially if there’s no idea existing yet. Understanding your needs and your clients needs is essential for the whole project. Based on the first briefing, briefingmaterial and some basic online research, the brainstorming process starts. Either with you or internally. Once we decided on an idea we move on to the next step.
Shoot the Video
Ensuring a hassle-free and legally sound video shoot is our priority. There is some rather small stuff you need to pay attention to, like not messing with copyrights and defamation of other parties. If you work with us, we'll provide you with all the essential information.
Besides that, as already mentioned, the base of all FOOH Ads are regular videos. Think about what format (16:9, 9:16 or 4:3) and what resolution (Full HD, 4K) you want it to be - that will already make a difference in how the video is being shot.
Creation
Every fake out of home ad creation starts with the tracking of the videofootage. That basically means that we recreate the camera movement of the videographer in a virtual space. This allows us to recreate the surroudings in a virtual scene, that represents what we see in the videofootage, and put 3D objects in there. Adjusting lighting, materials and reflections is where the reality comes in. Especially lighting makes 80% of a realistic scene/ object. In the end everything is being composited together (called 3d compositing), part of the could be to set objects free and layer them on top of your CGI installation to create another level of reality. É voila you got your FOOH Ad.
While there's still significant manual work involved (not AI driven yet), we've omitted some complexities in the explanation to keep things clear and accessible, ensuring that we handle all the heavy lifting for you. If you have any question don’t hesitate to contact us for more information.
Something that is not being discussed too much about is the ethical consideration of fake out of home ads. This is a huge topic will be discussed in a seperate article, but for now note that a lot of public buildings have a historical background, so think twice if you want to alter or play with this building. When you work with us, we do this research for you.
The buzz around Fake Out of Home Ads is undeniable in the marketing world, but will this trend stand the test of time? We anticipate it will remain a dominant force in advertising for at least another year.
As with any trend, it will evolve, and the initial viral excitement may wane. However, this presents exciting opportunities for 3D animation studios and artists to explore new and innovative creative avenues.
Brands like Samsung are already pioneering fresh approaches to FOOH Ads, showcasing their products uniquely. The future of FOOH Ads holds promise and limitless creativity, with brands and artists continually captivating audiences with remarkable content.
To sum it up, Fake Out of Home Ads (FOOH Ads) are going viral all over social media, due to their creative and attention-grabbing nature. These ads combine real video footage with imaginative 3D elements to showcase products in unique ways.
Certain key elements, like creativity, strong visuals, and relevance to the audience, makes them stand out and go viral. Companies and artists working on these ads must also consider ethical aspects when altering public places.
We believe that FOOH Ads will remain popular for at least another year and will become an essential part in the world of advertising in the future.
We are convinced that Fake Out Of Home Ads offer exciting opportunities for creative minds to explore new ideas.
So, keep an eye out for these impressive ads and the creativity they bring to advertising, as FOOH Ads are here to stay, offering endless possibilities for engaging audiences. If you want to see more examples check out this article.
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If your ads are no longer getting the retention that you need, you might wish to switch up the way you’re doing things.
That’s what Vapiano CGI Video advert did.
The result?
400,000 views within the first few hours.
And that is what made World Pasta Day a moment to remember!
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Old-fashioned advertising doesn't work well anymore because technology keeps changing. Brands that want to sell things should work with creative agencies that can keep up with new trends.
In today's fast-paced (advertising) world, capturing and holding a viewer's attention has become an art. It's a skill that demands focus, storytelling, and captivating visuals to keep eyes glued to screens.
So, if you’re wanting 2+ mio. unique views on your next advert, maybe the following insights of our project with Vapiano in collaboration with Traktor Wien agency will help.
In one sentence: Consistently showing up on social media.
Especially as a very young company with little connections in the marketing world, it is not easy to find clients. It’s so competitive that you need something unique. Something that shows you care about the work you do - in our case mostly "Fake Out Of Home Videos".
Our social media tactic: posting once a week, interacting with agencies and brands, try new stuff and not just have a portfolio page.
So, showing up on social media eventually lead, Traktor Wien Agency, whos motto is to do advertising for people who actually don’t like advertising, to our Instagram page and that’s how we ended up getting a good old email in our inbox.
After one or two weeks of DMs sharing ideas, a vision for celebrating World Pasta Day took shape. Vapiano's dream of creating an eye-catching advertisement became a reality.
Challenge 1: Attention
Grabbing attention in the first 1.5 seconds is a known fact to everyone who does social media.
Otherwise, attention is gone, and every click or action associated with it is also gone and of course so is the revenue it brings.
So, to grab the attention in the first place, things needed to happen, a lot of things. At first the viewer can spot the car with a gigantic vapiano take away box on the roof. Then you notice two people walking in from the left side, pointing at the facade, which was filled with hyperdimensional spaghetti.
And last but not least, it’s not enough to grab the attention, you also want to hold it. So as soon as the viewer is done with checking out the façade, the two vapianisti are already opening the double door to reveal an avalanche of penne and fusilli.
Challenge 2: Environment
Since the video was shot in a busier street (almos Mariahilferstraße), we already needed to pick a timeframe where there’s little people, but also where we would have a nice lighting. We checkout the place in different times of the day and decided for the morning between 8:00 am and 9:00 am. Everything seemed perfecet on the day of the shooting, but there is always something that you don’t have influence on. In our case that bulky jeep, that was parked in front of the building. Which was of course not exactly what we wanted when we first started filming.
Whilst it wasn’t ideal, we had to use our surroundings to our advantage and create storyboards based on everything around us – this is how we came up with the gigantic takeaway box infront of the building.
Challenge 3: Food
As already mentioned, the probably biggest challenge was to stage the food in a way, that the viewers first thought isn’t – “yuck, there’s food on the street”.
And so, we had to ensure that the fusilli-penne-avalanche simulation looked appetizing, which already was a challenge, because nobody ever saw a pasta avalanche of this size.
Challenge 4: Actors
The last challenge was the human challenge, because when you shoot the video, nothing is there yet. The actors need to understand what will happen in the after production and where everything will be placed. So it’s crucial to have a very detailed idea of what will happen, because you can change pretty much everything in the video, but the reaction of the humas to it is something that can’t be changed.
Our guess is a combination of the many impressions the viewer already has in the first 2 seconds, plus the fact that nobody had ever seen a scene like that before. A fun, entertaining video that invited people to come to the restaurant. It didn’t even feel like an ad.
Rendersnek's collaboration with Traktor Wien Agency for Vapiano's World Pasta Day campaign is a prime example of how CGI can be effectively integrated the advertising industry.
As the world of advertising evolves, standing out becomes crucial. It is understanding what captures attention and keeps viewers engaged that helps to make purchase decisions.
The combination of CGI, reality and attention to detail can turn an everyday scene into a spectacle.
As the lines blur between reality and CGI, this project exemplifies the boundless creativity of the advertising world, turning the ordinary into the extraordinary.
2023 was quite a year in terms of "Fake Out Of Home advertising" and in my opinion will for sure be known as the starting year of it. Following the fake out of home ads of some brands, especially fashion and lifestyle brands, the wording for it is still not 100% clear. Mixed Reality Videos, Augmented Reality Videos, Virtual Reality Videos, Fake Ads, CG Ads, CG Marketing, ...are some of many names people in the marketing space started calling these kind of videos.
As of now it looks like people are going for "FAKE OOH", which in my personal opinion has a little bit of a negative touch to it, since the wording "FAKE" tends to be used in a negative context. Now if you don't know yet what Fake Out Of Home is, I'll give you a short Introduction to it.
Fake OOH advertisement or as we like to call them "Mixed Reality Videos" are basically compositions of a real videos with computer generated imagery (CGI).
In short: putting/ tracking 3D objects in a conventional video.
In general the usage of CGI is nothing new, Hollywood is doing that for quite some time already. Asking google I found the following: "The first feature film to use CGI as well as the composition of live-action film with CGI was Vertigo (1958), which used CGI in the opening credits of the film. The first feature film to make use of CGI with live action in the storyline of the film was the 1973 film Westworld." If you want to read more about the history of CGI in Hollywood, there's a lot of articles and examples to be found on google.
As you can see this stuff exists for a long time already and most of us don't even notice it. Nowadays there is bearly any movie which does not use CGI. Now you might ask why should I care?
There are several arguments for and against CGI in advertising. Some people debate that it takes away the authenticity of advertisement and that people will not be able to distinguish between real and virtual elements anymore. Other see the incredible amount of opportunities we get through Mixed Reality Videos.
I personally would argue that the authenticity does not depend on whether something is computer generate or not. In the end it all comes down to the execution, if it fits my brand and how my clients interact with the created ads. Especially in a world of TikTok, Instagram and more it's hard to stand out - but statistics show that at least at the moment these are the kind of ads that go viral organically! And I find this quite interesting in a time where the narrative is, that reach is dependent on the money you feed this platforms.
To sum it up you can think whatever you want of Mixed Reality Videos, Fake Out Of Home or however you want to call them, but numbers don't lie, whether we talk about reach or the cost of such videos, that's why I have some examples that might be of interest for you.
@maybelline on instagram - normal having between 100k and 1mio views:
@zara on instagram - also proving unhinged content is a thing
@alexanderwangny on instagram - doing a huge CG installation
@jacquemus on instagram - making it a whole (very successful) fake out of home campaign:
Mixed Reality Videos are a great chance to advertise in places where you never could before. They're environmental friendly, since you don't really have to do an actual installation and they're a great way to go viral organically. I'm of course a little biased in this matter, but the numbers don't lie.
My suggestion: give the fake out of home advertisement a try!
