Fronted by 2021 Italian Grand Prix winner Daniel Ricciardo, September saw EA Sports launch a campaign called ‘After The Apex’ to promote the latest version of its Codemasters F1 game.
The four-film content series for F1 2021 gets off the grid with a spot featuring the Australian racing driver and giving viewers, gamers and F1 fans an ‘up close and personal’ insight into Ricciardo’s personality with a focus on his need for speed and his love of danger.
Launched on 8 September, the launch video outlines the McLaren driver’s thrill-seeking behaviour all the way back to his childhood and gives viewers analysis of what makes him so good at what he does and the first episode sees Ricciardo talk about his love for and study of other sports and outline how he seeks to turn insights he gleams from them into a competitive advantage on the track.
All through a fresh, animated lens into an extreme, abstract and psychedelic world.
The objective of ‘After the Apex’ is to show viewers the ‘person behind the athlete’ whilst simultaneously attracting F1 enthusiasts into the world of gaming.
Ricciardo himself joined the linked EA Sport, 20something and Kode Media team to work on the ideas, conception and creation of the campaign.
“Daniel Ricciardo has been a long time member of the EA Sports family. As you can see in the content we learn about his love, and study of other sports which is at the heart of what we do,” said EA Sports Athlete Relations Director Alex Wilde. “The content series will stretch beyond film and traditional media, with assets that will live in the real world, and integrate into the game itself. We can’t wait to continue to see this come to life.”
Creative house 20something Head Of Copy Elliott Starr commented: “An athlete like Daniel Ricciardo is hot property. As a result, a quick search on Youtube and you’ll see him getting up to all sorts of branded content mischief. One of my favourites let viewers in on Daniel’s love of Schnitzel. We knew we wanted to do something that looked different to the sea of content that was out there. We pursued a direction that mixed live-action and animation. What’s more, we brought creative elements from the game into our work, and elements from our work, into the game.”
Kode Media Executive Producer Jack Goodwin added: “Collaborating with EA Sports and 20something again has been a joy. Will Thacker and I hunted high and low and found an excellent animator in Chicago. Anthony Schepperd, who brought his distinctive and trippy style to the first film in tis series. Kode director Otis Dominique also stepped up to the plate bringing his vision and direction to all four films in the series and it’s thanks to the brilliant team at Echoic, who we also worked with previously on our EA Sports FIFA21 series, for crafting an epic soundscape for the world we created.”
The campaign was created for EA Sports Athlete Relations Director Alex Wilde and Senior Marketing & Communications Manager Jason Nikkinen and Codemasters Director Of Communications Shaun White by a team at creative house 20something where the group included Executive Creative Director Will Thacker, Head Of Copy Elliott Starr, Art Director Samuel Guillotel, Designer Casey Highfield and Account Manager Amy Greasby.
Production was handled by Kode Media with Director Otis Dominique, Executive Producers Jack Goodwin and Matt Fleming, Producers Danielle Wright and Emily O’Meara, Illustrator and Animator Anthony Schepperd and Editor Ashley White. Composition, sound and design was by Echoic Audio with DOP Courtney Bennett, colour by Stef Colosi and Kara Chhatwal
Comment:
Shows like Netflix’s ‘Drive to Survive’ have grown the general public’s appetite for this kind of behind-the-scenes, personality led content which tends to create a more intimate and human connection between fans and athletes and this initiative sees EA Sports leverage that trend.
This contrasting clash of colour and graphics, whilst still communicating speed and aggression, avoids the typical racing graphics and adds a fresh depth to the campaign = perhaps reflecting the driver’s own talent, personality and creativity.
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