Our C(OHM)Prehensive Process in Action: Hyundai x NFL Brand Activation Success
How do you create audience FOMO and level up the multi-market efforts of your national experiential activation?
You construct a clear process for planning, creating, executing, and delivering compelling Visual Brand Experiences.
When Rogers & Cowan (R&C) engaged O Hello Media to create a Visual Brand Experience for their 2021 Hyundai x NFL Brand Activation, their team had one primary goal: to utilize the trifecta of visual media to level up their creative output.
The O Hello Media team worked closely with the R&C experiential and creative teams to consult and uncover how their goals for the experiential program would translate into visual storytelling. From there, they worked to develop a shot list and build a video creative brief that laddered back to R&C’s goals and priorities for this exciting activation; with the primary objective of telling the story of this multi-market experiential initiative in a compelling, authentic way.
Ultimately, photography, videography, and video post-production brought the Hyundai x NFL story to life.
Trust the process.
The O Hello C(OHM)prehensive Process is designed to lead creative projects on a path to level up brand stories. Through impactful visual storytelling, we take projects beyond bullet point objectives into the biggest, brightest, and best version of the story each client sets out to tell through impactful visuals.
MEET: We get to know you and your objectives and begin guiding you toward achieving your ultimate Visual Brand Experience.
INNOVATE: Our team develops all the creative materials that ensure the visuals captured tell your brand story.
PLAN: We take care of the behind-the-scenes tasks and details to execute your project flawlessly.
CREATE: Your project comes to life based on the strong creative foundation we build together. This guides the execution and end result.
DELIVER: You receive impactful visuals that create a comprehensive Visual Brand Experience and leave a lasting impression on your audience.
Phase 1: MEET
The Meet phase is established to ground the entire team in the objectives of the marketing initiative. Our strategy during this phase is to stay curious as we ask the right questions to get everyone’s creative juices flowing and pinpoint the direction of the project with absolute clarity.
In this phase, we help the client refine and articulate their objectives through the focused lens of visual storytelling. For R&C, intentional discovery helped us create and solidify their goals, which included generating brand loyalty, fueling current marketing initiatives, supporting future marketing investments, and obtaining holistic capture that covered all five markets in the initiative by capturing the crowd’s excitement and engagement during the brand activation.
Once the client objectives are clearly defined, we elevate the team’s creativity around the project by inspiring more profound ideas and fresh approaches. The Meet phase wraps with elevated creativity, enhanced vision, and improved clarity and confidence for the project moving forward.
Key takeaway
As you deploy the first phase of any creative project, be ready to ask questions, employing careful, active listening with a keen ear for uncovering the real needs a client may be expressing. Rely on your instincts more than a creative brief; the magic in the Meet phase is the creative collaboration that can come from an open, honest, and willing dialogue.
Phase 2: INNOVATE
The Innovate phase is where you breathe life into your project, thinking and moving beyond the obvious and working to uncover the deeper “why” behind your initiatives. For a creative team, the second goal of this phase is to bridge the gap between the client’s expectations and the creative teams involved, bringing outside perspectives to this creative process to ensure exceptional execution.
In our Hyundai x NFL activation, we advanced our creative storytelling through the Innovate process to bring the client’s deeper objectives to the surface and bring them to life.
This process begins with a deeper level of discovery, expanding from the strong foundation laid in the Meet phase. Innovation is fostered through the collaborative creation of a creative brief that clearly and effectively uncovers the “Why” of the activation or campaign, mapping a clear roadmap for the end results.
We then create a custom shot list that is more than a list of what we expect to capture; it becomes a list of the shots we need to capture to fuel the objective we discovered together. Typically, a solid storyboard then fills every detail of the creative roadmap; visuals, words, sound, message, brand voice, colors, and style answer the initiative’s “why.”
Key takeaway
A solid storyboard has the potential to elevate the innovation, creativity, and impact of your brand activation. Still, it requires the discoveries of the Meet phase and the critical components of the Innovate phase. Cohesion is key.
Phase 3: PLAN
In the PLAN phase, project management takes the driver’s seat. Effectively outlining every step of the project ensures that time is saved – not wasted – and the result aligns precisely with the objectives and storyboard.
Here’s the abbreviated project management checklist our clients rely on us to deliver
Creatively manage the client team
Keep the program on track
Manage the overall project
Provide on-site creative management and execution
Results of R&C bringing on the OHM team
During the Hyundai x NFL brand activation, we effectively planned for the execution of the shoot itself down to each detail. Our pre-production work saved between 5-10 hours during the activation by allowing the photographers and videographers to work in their zone of genius: Capturing compelling visuals directly from the storyboard and shot list created in the Innovate phase.
With all the details outlined in advance, creatives are free to work autonomously on-site when behind the camera, focusing their skill, keen eye, and creative materials provided to carry out the project's vision. When it came to video post-production, our team saved nearly twenty hours of video editing time, a direct result of the comprehensive visual storyboard we created that outlined a frame-by-frame direction for the video component of the Visual Brand Experience.
Key takeaway
Accountability and collaboration are paramount to deploying an efficient and wildly successful activation or marketing campaign. With some team members handling the plan’s intricate details, others elevate and tap into their creative talent, and the agency team does what they do best – engaging and delighting their audience.
Phase 4: CREATE
In the CREATE phase, your project comes to life. When each step of the project builds from the critically strong foundation created in the Meet, Innovate, and Plan phases, the result is a creative process grounded in storytelling and visuals aligned with the brand’s original vision and mission.
When we sat down with the compelling visuals captured at the Hyundai x NFL activation, we had plenty of raw material that already aligned with the vision and purpose we set out to compile into the story R&G set out to tell.
While this project specifically focused on video post-production, our standard C(OHM)Prehensive Process designs for magic. With a clear creative direction, we create opportunities for on-site capture that infuses our team’s creativity with every shot, translating to powerful video post-production.
Establishing this creative foundation enabled R&C to feel confident and efficient during the video editing and feedback process. Each point of feedback was understood and implemented, the upfront creative services were reflected in each change, and the final product laddered back to the project’s initial vision from the Meet, Innovate, and Plan phases.
Key takeaway
Employing the best-in-class video post-production tools is crucial to a creative process that aligns with your brand’s vision.
Phase 5: DELIVER
The DELIVER phase is where photography, videography, and video post-production become part of a larger story – the trifecta of storytelling. When all three elements of the Visual Brand Experience are powerfully integrated, the result is a storytelling product with an impact far greater than the sum of its parts.
During the Hyundai x NFL brand activation, we accessed the event's emotion by delivering compelling, powerful visuals aligned with the brand’s story. The resulting Visual Brand Experience showed innovative capabilities to prospective brand clients, equipping R&G with an easily shareable story that can be adapted for various audiences and mediums to build their client base.
The delivery of compelling video, photo, and video post-production creates leverage for marketing efforts that last far beyond the event itself. Impressive metrics and program attributes will prove a positive ROI while increasing the probability of repeated or more extensive program commitments.
Most importantly, delivering a solid Visual Brand Experience paves the way for regional marketing and future experiential programming.
Key takeaway
Don’t underestimate the power of delivery as a process. Measure your product against all the objectives and desires expressed at the beginning of the project before collaboratively presenting your VBE to your client or audience. Keep your eye on the possibilities for regional marketing and a greater return on investment for future projects.
The Bottom Line
Capturing those compelling, emotion-packed moments in a brand activation never needs to be a test of serendipity. Instead, proper discovery, planning, and execution curate these moments, ensuring that your cameras are ready to catch every single one of them.
The impact only goes up from there. Effective video post-production and delivery of your final Visual Brand Experience as a holistic, powerful product set the stage for increased brand loyalty and future engagement with your clients and their partners.
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To download the slide deck of our Hyundai x NFL case study, click here! We are standing by to help you make your next brand activation the best one yet.
