ANKI
Anki makes games powered by cutting-edge artificial intelligence and robotics. I was a key part of a very lean team from West that embedded in the company at the beginning of 2013 and built its marketing from scratch. Over the next several months, many different creatives touched this project, including production companies, freelancers, and in-house designers. My role was primarily creative director and strategist — ensuring everything we did was creatively cohesive and created a good foundation for a new brand.
STEALTH MODE
We had three major priorities for the first six months:
- preparing for a meeting and demo with Apple’s executive leadership,
- defining our potential customers, and
- creating assets with extended lead-times (e.g. product packaging)
We had to build a brand identity as smart as the underlying technology.
And explain Anki’s technology for a variety of audiences in a simple, clear way.
During this time, we conducted research and play testing with multiple different groups of potential customers and developed insights to inform both the marketing strategy and product development (e.g. making the game more oriented toward kids by turning the cars into characters with strengths and weaknesses).
The packaging had to be designed before several aspects of the game’s experience had been finalized. We opted for a clean, minimal design and hired Character to execute.
The track itself was (graphic) designed by west's in-house design team.
launching the company
Introducing Anki Drive
Based on that first meeting with Apple, Anki was invited to debut their product during Tim Cook's keynote at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference in June.
I worked with the founder and lead product designer to design the demo and write the presentation.
The App
We knew that pre-teen kids were the core audience for the game. They're too young to have email or Facebook, but old enough to have an iPod touch or hand-me-down iPhone. And we didn’t want to end the keynote with just "coming soon".
So, we built an app that drip-fed information about the game over the summer and launched it on stage at WWDC. Once the product shipped in October, it became the game controller via an update in the App Store.
We hired Instrument to build the app and help us create content for it.
Seventy-five percent of people who downloaded the app continued to update it throughout the summer.
CINEMA SPOT
Produced by: Instrument. Additional visualizations by: Black Lodge
creating a foundation
Of course, we needed other assets to promote the product. I worked with an auto-racing journalist to craft the confident, competitive tone for the game. We worked with a number of production companies to create a range of assets for the launch and campaigns that followed.
CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS
I collaborated with an AI and robotics magazine writer to craft the tone for the company's communications, which were distinct from the game and its marketing campaign.
Produced by: Mutt Industries
Produced by: Avocados + Coconuts