Emergency concept development
for a homepage takeover
Thankfully, the creative agency and the client loved the concepts for both the MPU and skin, and, owing to our long experience with working with rich media placements, the video banner sailed through the QA process without any creative or technical feedback. (The fact that every member of the team were DoubleClick certified also helped expidite the process!)
As the Lead Digital Designer, it was my responsibility to come up with the idea for the concept, flesh it out, produce the layout PSD and build assets for the video banner, and design and publish the assets for the skin. I also assisted in sourcing the DoubleClick template we would need, and with advising on how the functionality of the video banner should work (having built many of these things myself over the yesars).
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The brief
This was one of those emergency requests from one of our partner creative agencies after, who suddenly found themselves with an additional Homepage Takeover (HPTO) to deliver at the last minute, as part of the launch campaign for the AmazonEcho. Comprising an HTML5, rich media, video banner and complimentary site skin, the HPTO needed to be concepted, designed, built, tested and delivered within two days. Check out the TVC below to find out more about this product...
The challenge
Working with little more than a copy of the TVC, a couple of logos and a product shot, the challenge was to come up with something that looked like it fit with the rest of the campaign, but had that added impact that you expect when you book a takeover. Due to the quick turnaround and looming deadline, it was also one of those jobs where we really couldn't afford any major feedback or lengthy rounds of amends, so the precision of the design and build was absolutely critical.
Action taken
Ultimately, the successful delivery of this job hinged on ruthless organisation and economy of effort. My first task was to provide the developer on the project with a rough idea of the concept that I had planned (as well as some rough working assets that we would later replace), and to quickly source the appropriate templates from DoubleClick's Rich Media library - this meant allowed us to work on both the design and the development at the same time. (I generally wouldn't recommend this approach.
I then put together a detailed storyboard for the video banner. The proposed conceot featured a short animated intro sequence that would pasue on a holding frame with a "watch video" - calculated move designed to sidestep the problem of the increasing lack of device / browser support for auto-play video (and the additional specs and requirements that usually accompany it when it is supported). The video player itself was designed to appear as an overlay with close button, and featured a bespoke look for all of the controls that we knew would be necessary for a rich media video player of this kind. If the video run to the end, or the close button was clicked, then the ad would transition back to the holding frame from the intro, ready to play again.
Once this was storyboard had been sent for approval, I provided the developer with proper build assets and then began work on the skin assets.