Thursday, June 07, 2007

DIGITAL PICTURES NEW DIGITAL WORK FOR SOCCEROOS

To promote NAB's sponsorship of the Socceroos for the forthcoming Asian Cup games, Digital Pictures was recently commissioned by Clemenger Blue to design and develop a large scale interactive Flash game. Featuring fully animated and photo-real 3D versions of John Aloisi, Tim Cahill, Harry Kewell and Archie Thompson, the game allows players to take control of their favorite Socceroo and run him through a series of post-goal "Celebration Dance" moves.
Clemenger Blue and Digital Pictures collaborated to craft a game that pushes the boundaries of what is technically possible using Flash, 3D animation, video, sound and engaging gameplay. The finished game was delivered within a month of the initial briefing which was only possible thanks to Digital Pictures' uniquely converged services. With Creative Direction from Clemenger Blue's Damian Royce, all the 3D modeling and animation, Flash development, database connectivity, video encoding, sound effects and game design were handled internally at Digital Pictures.
Aaron Cooper, Head of Interactive Media at Digital Pictures, commented that "this project represents a huge step in the shift towards interactive advertising. Here you have Australia's largest bank opting to forgo traditional advertising in favour of a cutting edge interactive piece. Clemenger Blue's vision and Digital Pictures' convergent media expertise have come together to produce a targeted campaign with real viral potential."

www.nab.com.au/socceroos or www.digitalpictures.com.au

34 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

This can hardly be considered interactive.

10:53 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Real shame it's just so lame to actually play, it really lets down the great 3d & animation.

12:42 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

anybody familiar with the acronym BOBFOCW? Any points it may have gained with the stunning visuals is completely shattered with the lack of originality and terrible gameplay.

a most uninspiring and disappointing game.

12:47 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Whilst I think the work is visually fantastic, the game itself is a bit of a let down.

Its such a shame because as I said, the graphics are superb but it looks like all the time was spent on that and the actual game was more of an afterthought.

4:21 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think this is great, actually.

2:16 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

While it's not playstation, this is a really great flash site-certainly better than the usual interactive work served up.

7:17 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If Clem Blue really believes "this project represents a huge step in the shift towards interactive advertising," no wonder people think they havent got a fucking clue about digital.

11:34 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

These responses sound a little tall poppy to me. We've been playing the game around the office all morning. I like it - but then again I work above the line, so I don't have any turf to protect! ;-)

11:38 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well I love it! Trying to get a high score is very addictive!

Considering the limitations of flash i think this is well done.

11:39 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

it's no fifa 07, but it's not bad for web. would have liked to kick the goal though.

11:39 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think Clem Blue are bang on the money when they call this a huge shift toward interactive advertising. Keywords here are: Interactive Advertising.

This can't have been a cheap little exercise - it represents a sizeable investment from NAB. If our interactive team's costings are accurate, most of our client base aren't prepared to spend the kind of money required for this kind of product. NAB obviously see a benefit in spending money in this media space. That is a shift. Does this mean no more ad junkets for us?

And why is it that whenever I put forward ideas forward for 3D flash games, I'm always told, "...blah blah blah bandwidth limitations, blah blah blah, CPU bottleneck blah blah.. can't do it..."

I think credit is due when credit is due. Credit is due here - to both client and Clems/Digipics.

I hope some of the team downstairs play this game and see what is possible. Maybe it's time to start outsourcing our interactive again????

12:33 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'd love to see how 11:34 is raising the bar.
Come on 11:34 show (not tell) YOUR example of how digital is done.

12:57 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Good work BLUE DIGITAL - nice to see some digital creatives try something a bit different.

Great idea, great execution.

2:05 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nice work Blue crew!

2:05 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

www.lame.com/wtf_tryharder

2:14 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

11:34 AM, you should learn how to read, the statement was made by Digital Pictures not Clem Blue.

2:23 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

oh, give me a break. Even the people who have criticised it say it looks amazing, so I think there has been credit given in the only place where credit is deserved. But to say that flash has limited what could have been a great opportunity to to do a fun game is an absolute cop out and tells me you're in the wrong industry.

3:38 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

i dont agree with the comment from Digital Pictures about "huge shift in interactive advertising". its just another great piece of creative.

5:41 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

this is a goal-den piece of work!

5:46 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Some interesting comments.

Its a big call for the Digipics guys to talk about it representing a huge shift in interactive advertising. The concepts that it revolves around, being gameplay, has been around for a whole. I would suggest that online gaming with embedded advertising was a larger shift.

That said, the creative is very well done, and if I were to judge it on this alone I would give it high marks.

However, we also do have to be realistic about a few things. Given that the game is bandwidth intensive, it's viral possibilities will be limited in Australia, where realistically only 40% of the population have what we would call a broadband connection. If it were a streaming video, then this wouldn't be a problem, hence videos do tend to be far more viral in Australia than games.

Also, the reality is that a lot of corporates cant access Flash on their corporate networks, so people passing the link round at work is also limited.

Who knows what the client brief was, maybe they didnt care about the number of eyeballs, however given that there is mention of it being virally effective, I am not sure that it will work.

It is of course fantastic when any well known brand starts to enbrace the web, but as a group the digital industry has to be careful that we dont create vanity pieces that have no ROI, otherwise the brands will avoid spending in digital again. There needs to be a reason for the pretty pictures! I am not saying that the NAB piece doesnt have an ROI, I am simply stating that having good creative isnt enough.

But as I said, great creative.

Cheers
Peter

12:51 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I agree 5:41, it isn't category breaking but it is pretty sweet.

1:50 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's great, entertaining and bloody simple. Partially agree with some of the earlier comments on critique of game play but I dont think people would necessarily hang around longer if it were more in depth. I know I'd rather be on me X-BOX 360 for hours than any bloody website.

2:23 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

12:33 who have you got downstairs in your office???
Now, where's my stapler...

2:28 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

@ Peter Bray: I think he meant it's a shift TOWARDS interactive advertising (away from traditional media) not a shift within it.

As 12:33 said, it can't have been a cheap exercise. Be interested in knowing what this little 'game' cost NAB, and like you said, if it has any ROI value.

3:27 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Its pretty disappointing to read the lack of awareness when it comes to client needs from those who have commented - especially given the comments most likely originate from the creative innovators in Australia. If this game cost $100k (probably cost more?), and 100k Australians spent a few minutes on it, thats a buck a pop - a brand reach/frequency difficult to achieve through other media... Maybe NAB or another corporate should just buy more annoying banner ads on boring.com.au websites - let's see how that raises the bar. Good on NAB for doing it, good on Clems/DP for innovating, sure a big improvement on AmEx's Pong (will it be recycled again for 2008 Aus Open?)...

6:16 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Whoever said Flash is not enabled on office computers... Check the statistics

6:21 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

A great piece of sponsored online gaming. Well done, it looks and works well.

11:32 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Perhaps the ROI plan is to attract a younger audience to the brand without pushing the usual product messages??
The website/game whatever you whant to call it is awesome.

10:35 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I liked it. It's also very slick...I wish I'd done it.

12:03 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

6:21 PM . . .

The stats you pointed to refer to installations of Flash, not the ability to view Flash (these are two very different things.)

A lot of corporate users do have Flash installed, but are unable to view it due to security on their network. I personally think this is a bit dumb as Flash poses minimal security threats (when compared to MS Word for example) however for some reason a lot of techies think that is the devil's work.

It is great to see the penetration of Flash in the market however.

4:22 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

http://www.gettheglass.com/

check it and believe.

12:08 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I liked this alot! The moves in the game are great especially in 'hard' format. Cahill also does his signature shadow boxing move...a nice touch.

8:17 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Very good guys very good.

11:51 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Good work CLEM BLUE and Dig Pics. Really great site

8:57 AM  

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