HZDG
It isn’t easy being green. The task before the team at HZDG was unusual: promote a building that doesn’t exist. Yes, the building will be designed by one of the world’s pre-eminent architects, Richard Rogers. Yes, it will be the greenest real-estate development in Washington, D.C. But the space that it will occupy currently contains an already-profitable hotel. And all the designers had to work with was an architect’s proposal and a philosophical approach.

“The developers needed to gauge interest among real estate brokers to see whether it was worth it to tear down the hotel and build this building,” explains Jefferson Liu, senior art director at HZDG. “We had no visual assets other than a couple of renderings of the building provided by the architect, but we needed to create something totally unique that would break out from the cookie cutter brochures, PowerPoint presentations and DVDs that most developers use.”

The team came up with a multiphase promotion that included a series of eight 3D direct-mail pieces. Since orange is the project’s theme color, items sent included posters with one side printed full-bleed orange, orange Legos … and an actual orange. The penultimate piece was an invitation to an event and an orange phone preloaded with the client’s phone number. Those that attended the event got the biggest kicker of the entire campaign: an iPod Nano with video preloaded on it.

The video itself, a winning entry in this year’s competition, uses a range of techniques and animations to maximize minimal materials. By using a clean, white backdrop, the piece visually reinforces the visual messages. Patterns of blueprints and streetscapes move in the background to evoke the project’s urban, high-tech location and amenities, while plants grow and blossom across the screen to bring home the sustainability message. Liu points out the technical challenges were immense. “Essentially, every single screen is animated—the only video is a woman walking across a green screen. We had a little bit of stock photography, but all the motion we did in-house. Anything fl at, we turned to life.” As interesting as the video itself is, the delivery mechanism was perhaps the most inspired part of the presentation. “By delivering the video in this way, we gave [event attendees] an opportunity to share it and thereby create a viral effect,” says Karen Zuckerman, HZDG president and executive creative director.

“Plus, it’s forward-looking and uses technology, just like the project,” adds Liu, “and it’s just wicked cool.” Not to mention successful: The program created the requisite buzz and building plans are moving forward. Laurel Saville

HZDG | CREATIVE DIRECTORS: KAREN ZUCKERMAN, TAMARA DOWD | ART DIRECTOR: JEFFERSON LIU | MOTION DESIGNER: DAVE GLANZ | WRITER: JOEY TARBELL | PROJECT MANAGERS: STACEY MAHONEY, DAVE ABRAMSON | DIRECTOR OF INTERACTIVE: STACEY TORJAK | MUSIC: BENJAMIN KO | CLIENT: 1201K | WWW.HZDG.COM