BBH London debuted this action-packed, CGI-rich 60-second film for Samsung Electronics’ System LSI Business, heralding the new era of grown-up mobile gaming enabled by its Exynos 2200 ‘next generation’ mobile processor.
Until now, high-quality immersive gaming experiences have been restricted to console-based game play. The Exynos 2200, however, is billed as revolutionizing the quality, speed, and sophistication of mobile games when the processor chip is built into next generation mobile phones launching this year.
Titled “The Marketplace,” the spot opens in a metaphorical mobile game market––a visual metaphor for an online app store––and follows a female character passing by an array of street vendors trying to sell poor-quality, heavily-pixelated 8-bit computing-style fruits, and weapons.
The hero is soon lured down an alleyway by a grizzled, Alice-in-Wonderland-inspired white rabbit to an underground black market populated by darker characters and vendors trading guns and weapons, all in full HD quality. The action ends with the line: “Playtime is over.”
The agency’s brief was to drive anticipation and excitement among keen gamers ahead of the launch of the first phones containing the new mobile processor, which features a state-of-the art mobile graphics processing unit (GPU) developed by Samsung in partnership with AMD.
The starting point was the idea that the new GPU would now make mobile gaming serious. This, in turn, inspired the “Playtime is over” campaign theme and strapline.
Matthijs van Heijningen of MJZ directed “The Marketplace.”
The postproduction house–and creator of the film’s lead CGI characters: White Rabbit and Lizard–was The Mill in Paris.
Live action was filmed on location in Kiev, with much done in-camera and significant time and effort invested in art department and wardrobe, with a high level of craft involved to maximize production quality–all costumes made, for example, were bespoke. Original music was composed by Goldstein Music. Sound effects were done by 750mph.
Stuart Royall, creative director at BBH, said, “This was a dream brief from our partners at Samsung. To launch a new processing unit, targeted at hardcore gamers is an incredible opportunity. Together, we’ve constructed an incredible, alternate universe full of rich detail, dangerous characters and even more dangerous weapons. There’s even a few additional details hidden in there to reward the most eagle-eyed gamers”
