The Windows Vista video ad running on 70 meter worth of LCD displays at JFK airport is one of the best video ads for the operating system along with Microsoft's Wow commercial. The video fragment embedded at the bottom plays on a handful of Vista qualities. There is a selection of features, capabilities and functions that Microsoft has continuously applauded in order to convince users to upgrade to Vista. Under "the Wow starts now" slogan, the JFK Vista ad offers a summary of the best parts of the operating system. However, the approach is different than that of the Windows Vista Wow video ad. The human element has been taken out, and the visual
effect upped a tad.
The video advertisement is the product of experiential design specialist Tronic and debuted concomitantly with the availability of the operating system at JFK International. It runs on no less than a real estate space of 70 by 13 meters composed by 70-inch plasma screens. The ad was launched on January 30 2007, simultaneously with the operating system.
"We had five weeks to conceptualize the Vista brand campaign theme 'Wow!' and produce several computer animated vignettes that communicate key components of the new operating system," said Jesse Seppi, co-founder and creative director of Tronic. "We worked closely with Frauke Tiemann, Vista's creative director at McCann, to develop a series of animations that describe the main component of the operating system."
The ad spans for a total of 60 seconds of HD CG animation, and the content in the video at the bottom does not do justice to the actual 3D HD Vista commercial. There are a total of eight pods, each built from 5 HD screens making up a total of 40 screens. The frame required the content to be 10,000 pixels wide by 1080 pixels tall.
"This was a complex production challenge due to the many format and spot lengths we rendered in high definition," said Seppi. "First we focused on producing the five screen JFK narrative and then reanimated that content to work within all the different aspect ratios, from Times Square to the cinema spot to the Sunset Boulevard billboard. The final renders for JFK, rendered at what was essentially HD x 5, were quite time intensive to say the least."
