Inspire to Aspire Video
Success achieved
Successfully launched an engaging video for students and young engineers to highlight the attractiveness of a career in the automotive and mobility industry.
- Website
- https://www.fisita.com
- Project dates
May 2016 – January 2017
Project team
- Chris Mason, Chief Executive
- Patrick Carpenter, Communications Manager
- Hayley Millar, Education Manager
Tools & Systems
Hurricane Media led with the production, using the latest editing technology, but our main brief was that the video had to be used across multiple channels and platforms (including social media) and easily translated for our diverse and global audiences.
Introduction
FISITA is charged by its members to develop and deliver educational materials in support of STEM - encouraging young people to engage in the subjects of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths.
Through its Roadmap to 2020 long term development plans, the ‘Your Future In Automotive’(YFIA) initiative has recently been augmented, with the support of the FISITA Executive Board and contribution from the international Education Committee the ‘Inspire to Aspire’ programme was created in 2015.
‘Inspire to Aspire’ is a FISITA created programme that allows all members to deliver a consistent message to students and young engineers across all 37 countries that FISITA membership is active within.
To reach out to students and young engineers, FISITA created a marketing toolkit, which is readily and freely available to all members, providing messaging and content to embed in websites, newsletters and in general outreach activity. The aim is to direct people to the YFIA web space, for careers advice, overview of auto mobility career pathways, and a registration to become a FISITA ‘Friend for Life’ which opens the door for individuals to engage with FISITA and make best use of the products and services we provide in support of the worlds engineering community.
This initiative led to our vision to spearhead the campaign through developing a short, impactful video as the best way to reach the target audience, gain momentum and use across global and cultural different audiences as it is so easy to share.
The critical call to action and central to the overall success of the campaign is an inspiring short video entitled ‘Your Future in Automotive’.
Discovery
Utilising the significant expertise of the FISITA Education and Technical Committees, we could develop plans which we perceived to be, and subsequently ratified, as internationally relevant.
Through this collaborative approach we developed content which presented a common message to students and young engineers.
What was extremely clear was that, to ensure we achieved our objective of connecting with the next generation via consistency and simplicity, we would need a video which would impact students globally, regardless of language and culture. High energy, great visual impact and compelling messages would be crucial, which would break the mould of a traditional, automotive outreach campaign.
Objectives
Over the next three years, all members to deploy the video within their websites to deliver the collaborative campaign to an international audience. The potential reach could be more than 200,000 as the campaign works virally via a multiplicity of starting points around the world.
The overarching objective of this initiative is to provide a common and consistent marketing approach, to raise the profile of the attractiveness of the mobility systems engineering profession of today and change perceptions to inspire students and young engineers to pursue a career pathway within our industry.
Activities
- Chris and Patrick involved in the process from FISITA
- Pitched idea to our external designer, Ian McGregor, who recommended two video production companies
- Formed an objective statement for pitch: Create an impactful, short film which demonstrates the automotive mobility sector as an attractive career pathway opportunity to young people and engineers. Promote the modern, tech driven industry of today in order to change perceptions and increase visibility on sexy product and cool technology before setting the challenge ‘where will you take us next and delivering the ‘Your Future In Automotive’ call to action.
- Rooftop Productions and Hurricane Media sent proposals
- Agreed to proceed with Hurricane Media and met with them during May 2016 in London – white board planning
- This led to the following email
"The proposal, as it stands, is that we will aim to create a 60 second (approx.) film.
The film will be driven by text and imagery, with most of the imagery being provided by animation (we won’t use voice over at the moment, as text will make it easier to translate the film into other languages at a later date).
We will be working to the following top line brief from FISITA:
Create an impactful, short film which demonstrates the automotive mobility sector as an attractive career pathway opportunity to young people and engineers. Promote the modern, tech driven industry of today in order to change perceptions and increase visibility on sexy product and cool technology before setting the challenge ‘where will you take us next’ and delivering the ‘Your Future In Automotive’ call to action."
Creative
My creative thought process on this is to create something super impactful, with a short punchy script.
Taking pace, and visual keys from this Honda film.
But with the messaging being more focused on engineering and career development, like in another film.
Although our visual approach would be different and we would use text, not voice over.
Production
Animation - proposal
Then for the visual side we would use a combination of 2D illustration and animation. And 3D animation for a few key parts, for example engines, cars, wheels and the techy elements.
I have also included some stock imagery, as we may use some diagrams or photos as well.
Animation wise, we would take the following films as rough examples:
- Text animation and sound effects:
- Animating combined with photography (download link):
As the sound is a vital part of this film I would suggest we create bespoke music and sound design for the engine noises and effects. This will really lift the final piece.
Ballpark budget
The specific line items are TBC until we create a final storyboard. We can get much more specific and accurate on the line item costs at the next stage of the project. But this will give you a brief overview
- Budgets agreed in June 2016
- First story board created
- First video draft in July 2016 and used online communications system instead of email – useful as it means everybody involved can see the timeline of messages. Easy to share imagery and video
- Numerous email back and forth from FISITA, designer and Hurricane during July
- Draft two in August 2016 – confirmed music – very upbeat and pulsating
- Final cut – September 2016
- Published in January 2017 on social media and promoted to members with marketing pack
Storyboard - snippet
Innovation
In an industry which is traditionally seen as old fashioned and male dominated, the film is not only impactful, from a visual and audio perspective but also from the perspective of changing the direction and perception of our organisation and the industry.
This is not to be underestimated as a major contributor to the successful modernisation of FISITA in recent times – where images can speak a thousand words.
Marketing
The Inspire to Aspire marketing pack is being disseminated to all FISITA members, and readily available to them via the Members Area of FISITA.com, which will enable FISITA to orchestrate an international marketing campaign.
Members will be encouraged to use the video as the focal point of the campaign by embedding it within their websites and across their digital channels. Once full coverage is achieved, this will deliver a significant and continued international reach via 38 international engineering Member Societies, to a potential 200,000+ international community.
Challenges
- There were financial concerns at first – the quote came in over budget, but this cost was approved once we acknowledged the opportunity to create such an impactful video.
- There were numerous people providing feedback so this was time-consuming and views differed. We had to go with the general consensus.
Achievements
The video is an outstanding piece of work and has delivered against all of its pre-production objectives. Long-term it will make a significant contribution to the success of the FISITA Inspire to Aspire campaign and the investment in the Your Future In Automotive initiative.
As part of an overarching strategy, the video will continue to form a focal point for young people as they make critical career choices.
User experience
We wanted an immediate impact, so ‘open the webpage and go’ technology was deployed – with high energy and challenging from an audio/visual perspective.
We also wanted the video to reflect the diverse and varied nature of a career in automotive and mobility systems engineering and for the opportunities to be exciting and intriguing, leaving the audience wanting to know more.
The use of music provided a ‘buzz’ and our market- testing ahead of launch and anecdotal feedback to date, from the target audience and our industry partners, is very positive.
Targets & Statistics
The video was embedded into the refreshed YFIA section of FISITA.com and is the first thing that users see as they enter the website, to create immediate impact. The YFIA section attracted 30,000 page views in Jan/Feb 2017, so the video was exposed to a wide audience. This is an increase of 6,000 users from the previous two months.
It was also added to the FISITA Facebook page, generating a reach of 105,000 people and 12,000 views in two weeks.
Financials
We invested the correct amount of capital to make a film that would deliver against our objective but it also had to be futureproof, to ensure the investment was of mid- term value. Working with Hurricane Media was a calculated decision as they are a high-quality agency that we could rely upon, ultimately, we invested £15,000 in producing the film.
The aim to encourage more students and young engineers into the industry would provide return on investments should just one student be inspired – never mind hundreds.
Never before have Members had a global marketing campaign for young people and we have been applauded for seeking new ways to reach our future engineers.
What would we do differently?
- We now use an external video consultant to film our events - he has provided greater insight into using agencies. He is often used by agencies when video editing is out-sourced. For future video productions, he will be our first point of call rather than an agency.
- Involve less people internally with the approval/design process
- Request the video in a number of editable formats, suitable for websites / social / idents
Wider impact
The video helped FISITA to reposition itself as a relevant membership organisation in 2017, looking to the future and changing the dialogue to ensure we are fit for purpose for the mobility generation of engineers. From this perspective, the video has been an enabler, and allowed us to roll out an international campaign via (and for) our members.
It was first shown at the FISITA World Automotive Congress in Busan, South Korea and received a standing ovation with members being able to visualise the long- term outcomes.
It is beginning to become established and deliver our aims and objectives over the long term, which was our intention as these campaigns cannot be immediately impactful with so many stakeholders to coordinate.
