A video clip to mark the anniversary of iMARS Communication Group With its bright challenging characters, memorable texts and melodies, this music video sets a new bar for production of corporate video. In 2021, iMARS turned 20, and to mark this anniversary the Communication Group team has created an animated video. Media say that this video tells the whole of the truth about the Agency’s life: the characters sing and dance while flying spaceships, fighting volcanic fires, managing Godzilla, joining the Chinese Communist Party, and growing apples on Martian cacti. They just rave about their own awesomeness. The company’s top managers starred in this hype-generating animation film. Company’s team members also appear in this video as animated characters. They are superheroes who fly into astro passion to remind the industry that “after 20 years one can hardly be called a freshman.” Project Goal: enhancing the communication Agency’s image in terms of B2B and HR communications Project Objectives: • drawing attention to the newsworthy event, i.e. the Agency’s 20th anniversary; • providing the target audience with awareness about the Agency’s current activities with emphasis made on the scale of the tasks solved and the sizeable client portfolio; • using the game mechanics of corporate video to demonstrate a well-balanced approach to problem solving that comprises serious thoughtfulness combined with humor and self-irony; • creating a “wow” effect to motivate people to learn more about the Agency’s activities. Creative Idea and Strategy: In 2021, Russian advertising market got out of the COVID-19 crisis showing a 46% growth. However, besides the recovery of advertising budgets and post-crisis growth, the COVID-19 pandemic created new challenges both for the markets and the market players: • The clients tend to request new competencies from agencies or even to create their own in-house subdivisions • It seems like remote working did the impossible: today even the market leaders (not to mention the smaller companies) are ready to experiment by adding companies located outside their home regions or even highly-qualified freelancers to their supplier pools (fl.ru reports that Russia already has 5 million of such highly-qualified freelancers) This means that a client of communication agency now has a wide and a more complicated choice, i.e. the clients have to select those agencies and solutions that take a nonstandard approach. As far as a communication agency is concerned, this means more efforts and difficulties to promote itself and make itself visible! In 2021, iMARS Communication Group turned 20. The team decided to turn this corporate anniversary into a newsworthy event to enhance the Agency’s image in the densely populated market and to position the Agency as an innovative and creative one ready to take bold decisions. Such kind of presentation would make the anniversary visible in the news feeds of the field-specific websites and ensure that it is met with great interest by the fellow tradesmen (experts in advertisement market, marketing and PR, i.e. the current and potential clients and colleagues). The key task was to use the latest trends and to create a standout solution for the savvy audience who seem to know personally each and every of the Cannes Lions. Creative Idea: Every day, the Communication Agency becomes a field of invisible battle of creative impulses and ideas against the harsh reality. Eventually the nonstandard approach (whatever means it uses) becomes the winner. Even if they have to climb Everest or extinguish a volcano, the team members would do anything to find the best solution. And this how it goes on for the last 20 years. As a rule, advertising business means that you work 24/7 and whenever a deadline is approaching you forget about days off or weekends. But at the same time every day at work is like a festival. The main selection criteria include original presentation, one of the kind style, as well as bright and recognizable image in line with the current trends. The story of success in cooperation between iMARS and Chinese companies (and generally work in Chinese market) was one of substantial emphases. For this purpose they included in the scenario a special fragment to cover it. Thus, the soundtrack is partly sung by a Chinese singer whose voice was carefully chosen to match the voice of the singer who sings the Russian part of the soundtrack. This all was done simultaneously: while the concept and scenario were still in progress, the composer already started to create music for the video, the animators sketched the characters and backgrounds, the producers selected singers to sing both in Russian and Chinese. It is quite interesting that all the Company’s team members who took part in the Project were actively contributing. They got ready for the photo sessions assisted by make-up artists. Cut-out and collage digital technology was chosen for visualization. This made it easier to communicate with the team members and to apply any image for any character. Thus they created a brand new product of animated video by combining the TV video clips widely popular in the 2000s and the collage technology, the latest technology of 2021. First and foremost, this communication campaign is aimed at B2B audience (those who are in the advertising business). “Our life is full of all sorts of serious things,” say the Agency team members. “This is why while making this anniversary video for ourselves we decided to tell the rest of the market what we think about ourselves and what we actually do. And we did it honestly and with a touch of self-irony. Our company is as old as 20 years old and at the same time it is as young as 20 years old. We are green and young at heart and we have a really great team! We’d like to take a minute to be playful, to laugh with a full-throated laugh and to amuse our clients, our partners and ourselves”.