Our commercial begins in marketing land, where people exist only as broad demographics. Ten men 18-34 are taking a riverside stroll. Everyone they pass is similarly generic: retirees 65+ in identical tracksuits; fitness enthusiasts 25-34 with identical ponytails; Asian men 18-25 nodding in time to the same song. In a single shot – no CG, no cutaways – the generic men transform and become different people: a business guy walking his dog, a bicyclist taking a ride, a construction worker headed to the jobsite. When the commercial ends, we’re back where we started but the world has changed – from marketing land to a world of unique individuals.

IBM software helps marketers see the world as individual people instead of groups of demographics. But how do you show a world of look-alikes becoming a world of one-of-a-kinds? CG is one way – but it looks like CG. We wanted a technique that would make our tech-savvy audience wonder, “How did they do that?” Shooting in LA would have been cost-prohibitive. So we traveled to Prague, a city with rich theatrical and circus traditions, to find local masters of practical effects. Each actor was assigned a crew, responsible for creating and executing their transformation. Using pulleys, armatures, fishing lines, tear-away seams, false bottomed shoes, inflatable pouches and other old-fashioned techniques, the crews built rigs to transform each actor’s appearance in real-time as part of a single, fluid performance. Over weeks of rehearsals, the transformations went from shaky to solid – but even the day before shooting, some elements were only working every second or third time. With a half hour required for reset, we didn’t have time for dozens of takes. On day one of shooting, we got one that was usable. The morning of day two, we got three more. That afternoon, with time running out, we got our winner: take 12. Back in New York, we corrected for color. Added an original score. Painted out a few filament lines. And shipped our finished product: one very low-tech, high-tech IBM commercial.

Breakdown of costs:

Cast: 12 on-camera principals along with 32 extras & featured extras.

Production company cost: $850,000.

Edit & Graphics fees (approx.): $100K.

Rehearsals, fittings, session fees & buy-out costs: $211,000.00.

Music costs: $25,000.00.

Agency travel costs (approx.): $20,000.00

Total: $1,181,000.00

This banner was successful for IBM not only because the client was pleased with the clear, concise way the roadblock banner format illustrated the relationship between customer and company, but because of the user interaction it generated. The banner’s average interaction rate almost doubled IBM’s standard rich media creative interaction rate.