Top Secret Process
Lumosity being a science driven company, there is a large emphasis on testing. I built animatics such as what you see above to gather feedback from focus groups, and nail down our story. After several iterations we landed on what you see here. Having the piece laid out in this form was of course invaluable in diving straight into production, and keeping costs low.
Before the story was read to present to focus groups, I drafted simple storyboards to present to our stakeholders. Above is an earlier iteration of the ad, which clung tighter to the theme of ‘objects of potential’. The beginning started off much as it does in the final, but moves into a montage of empty blueprints and blank pages, meant to inspire potential. It closes with a more product geared finale, going through several value props. We eventually decided steer away from this ending. to take a risk on a more aspirational message.
Early in the project we held an open brainstorm with all the artists at the company to come up with ‘objects of potential’. The list goes on much longer than shown above. Some of my favorites that didn’t make the cut: a peanut, a sheep, and the bone from 2001.
Alternate Direction
We had explored several other concepts beside potential, such as ‘discovery’. The animatic above was presented to focus groups as well, but didn’t quite make the cut.
Potential
For these broadcast ads I had a chance to work closely with the lead copywriter at Lumosity, to explore an aspirational message that spoke for the brand. We were essentially a two man band, playing quadruple duty as producers, directors, artists, audio engineers, you name it. Naturally, the process took some twists and turns, resulting in several fleshed out concepts, before narrowing it down. Lumosity being a data centered company, we ran tests through several focus groups. Ultimately the theme of ‘Potential’ took center stage, driven by common place but intriguing visuals of ‘objects of potential’. With our story set we hired a kick ass illustrator and voice actor, and I polished it all of with motion and clean up. That about sums it up, please insert a clever comment / pun using the word potential to close this paragraph off.