114 The Best Digital Marketing Campaigns in the World
Action
One of the major themes in the film was to make science fiction plausible, to
make audiences think about where we could conceivably be 30 years from
now. While the creative team couldn’t create online placements that were 30
years ahead of their time, they decided to employ bleeding edge technology
relatively untested in the online space.Doing so, and ensuring that the ad placements would work properly when
they went live, meant working closely with rich media vendors, websites, the
media agency and the film-makers well in advance of the campaign launch.
From this approach, two units emerged as the marquee units for the online
campaign.One of the highlights of the campaign was an expandable 728×90 rich media
unit that featured a 360-degree revolving recreation of the new Enterprise’s
bridge that was built using Action Script 3 and Papervision. This was one of
the first units to launch with Doubleclick’s newly upgraded Action Script 3
enabled advertising platform. The unit featured videos, downloads, a photo
gallery and hidden ‘Easter eggs’ (the ability to put the ship into warp drive by
clicking on one of the consoles underneath the main view screen, a first-look
exclusive for this ad unit, and the ability to turn on red alert by clicking on the
button panel on the right side of the captain’s chair).The unit was crammed with visual and audio effects that came straight from
the film. When watching videos on the bridge’s view screen, visitors could
see many animations provided by Industrial Light and Magic overlaid on the
actual video footage, accurately reflecting the look of the view screen from
the film itself. The ad also features a larger expansion size of 728×400 to
really immerse users in the experience. During the early concepting phases
the creative team worked with media agencies and rich ad vendors to make
sure that all the sites running the ad unit could deliver the non-standard size.For the final phase of the campaign the team built a series of home page
takeovers that launched on the day of the film’s release. The one that had the