The GM VPP Site Redesign

Problem: GM has 6 Vehicle Purchase Programs, each with its own distinct brand (see the post below!), but it did not want 6 different website portals.

Solution: Develop and design a responsive site that not only delivered on the important features visitors needed, but also let each of the unique brands shine through.

Role: ACD /  Designer

I worked closely with UX and Development to design a user experience that felt both functional but also gave each of the brands the opportunity to feel unique. Visitors coming from other brand executions would encounter a seamless brand experience.

This is an example of the Supplier Discount site, the brand tone is a sophisticated presentation of the GM products, leveraging beautiful detail-focused photography and sleek black visual cues.

The GM VPP re-branding

Problem: GM has six different discount programs targeting vastly different audiences, but none of them had their own brand identity.

Solution: Develop strategies from the ground up and relaunch each program as its own unique brand.

Role: ACD / Art Director

The GM Vehicle Purchase Programs include the GM Military Discount, Supplier Discount, Family First Discount, College Discount, Educator Discount and Dealership Employee Discount. Each program was relaunched from the ground up including strategic insights, new brand look-and-feels and logos.  I directed a small team of Art Directors and Writers to develop the brand design and tone for each of the programs.

Break-through solutions to difficult marketing problems.

Welcome to my portflog, or blogfolio!

What I have here are the best and brightest of my projects. Projects that were important stepping stones on my path to being a modern creative. What you won't see here are the hundreds of day-to-day projects or bread-n-butter that I've had the pleasure of working on. They are important, but unabashedly numerous.

My latest baby I'm most proud of is the OnStar 4G LTE Unboxing event I led over the summer of 2014. Here's a video case study.

Thanks for stopping by!

Kevin Omans



OnStar 4G LTE Unbox Case Study from kevin omans on Vimeo.

OnStar CES Oculus Experience

Problem: How do you grab the attention and imagination of a hundred-thousand tech enthusiasts without a big new story?

Solution: By telling a big story in a new way.

Role: Creative Director

We developed the overall CES OnStar/Chevrolet exhibit with the OnStar key brand pillars in mind. It was sectioned into themes to emphasize the Powerful, Simple and Connected aspects of the brand. Each section had a representative vehicle (Corvette, Malibu and Colorado respectively) and graphic information services that spoke to each theme. 

We knew we wanted a bigger draw though. Some way to stand out of course. To do this we decided to re-envision the Powerful, Simple and Connected themes in a completely different and virtual way. 

We created a world that took you outside of the CES experience. About 10 miles outside of Las Vegas to be exact.  When you put on the noise-cancelling headphones and goggles you were taken to an open wilderness, complete with calming wind and crickets.  Rich Somer, of Mad Men fame, was your guide as you used an Xbox controller to explore this wilderness. You were presented with the three key vehicles and short animations that would explain the aspects of OnStar that prove how Powerful, Simple and Connected it is. 

The OnStar 4G LTE Unbox Event

Problem: How do you grab the attention and imagination of millennial tech enthusiast's?

Solution: By announcing a mysterious new technology and unboxing it live.

Role: Digital Creative Director / Copy Writer / Art Director

The Unboxing was a two-part social and live experience that played out over 5 days.

PHASE 1: GRAB YOUR ATTENTION AND BUILD THE AUDIENCE 

In July of 2015 two very large unbranded boxes appeared in San Francisco and Boston. Street teams encouraged people to guess what might be in the box and write it on the side of the box. Armed with iPads and free Wi-Fi emanating from the boxes, the street teams signed passerby's up for a sweepstakes to win cutting edge technology like Google Glasses and Windows Surfaces. Everyone was told that on July 31st the technology would be unboxed and the prizes would be announced throughout a live broadcast.

PHASE 2: UNBOX!

On July 31st, Veronica Belmont unboxed a 4G LTE Wi-Fi enabled vehicle in front of a live audience in San Francisco. It wasn't just an unboxing of the vehicle however. Veronica used the Wi-Fi to connect to a singer/songwriter named Daria Musk in Boston who performed a song in the back of Chevy Silverado streamed through the Silverados Wi-Fi to a Google Hangout. Veronica also connected with Jon Rettinger and Manchester United legend Denis Irwin in Ann Arbor Michigan. Every minute of the show reflected OnStar's commitment to redefining what it means to be connected.

Watch a short case study on the Unboxing event:

OnStar 4G LTE Unbox Case Study from kevin omans on Vimeo.

The OnStar "Connected By" Campaign

Problem: How do you launch a new service that changes the very meaning of "being connected"?

Solution: Inspire the audience by sharing all the amazing things that you can now do on-the-road thanks to built-in vehicle Wi-Fi.

Role: Digital Creative Director / Copy Writer / Art Director

In the previous year we strove to remind you of the amazing things that a vehicle equipped with OnStar could do. This year we set out to up-the-ante with the amazing things you can do with built-in vehicle Wi-Fi. Not only did we find a fresh way to expand on our campaign, we used it to craft very targeted messages. We created three digital videos from these messages that were then used for content, pre-roll, rich media and standard banners.

You can check out the videos here:

Coast

Dad

Jetpack

The OnStar "Amazing" Campaign

Problem: How does a brand that was once the first of its kind, stand out amongst a sea of competitors?

Solution: Remind a technologically-desensitized nation to stop and smell the amazing.

Role: Digital Creative Director / Art Director / Copy Writer

To be honest, there were several problems that needed solutions here. One of those problems was how could we achieve our goals without TV?  Our answer? Digital video content, a smart online media buy to spread it around, and a content heavy experience waiting for those who clicked through.

With the help of some extremely talented people we created four videos that did our best to explain the many faces of OnStar in a simple and amazing way. This digital video content became pre-roll, rich media banners and three-frame standard banners.

The destination for the campaign was OnStarConnections.com.  OnStar Connections is a dynamic and  responsive content hub that meshes the rational and emotional sides of OnStar together to create one very compelling story. And OnStarConnections.com is just the tip of the iceberg.  The Connections publication includes Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram.

You can see all the videos here:

"Dream"

"Joyride"

"Sandman"

"Crash"

OnStar FMV Product Launch

Online Media

Problem: How do you announce that OnStar is now available on most vehicles on the road when the world thinks it's only available on GM vehicles? 

Solution: Let them know that OnStar now comes in a box. 

Role: Digital Creative Director / Art Director

The campaign direction was dubbed the "Power of the Box." The concept for our online media was that every banner was a "box", and in each of those boxes the services of OnStar lived. We created real-life stages that were proportionally correct for each of the three standard banner sizes - 300x250, 728x90 and 160x600.

In each of these stages we filmed actors representing the key services of OnStar passing a multi-sided sign between each other denoting what service they represented. The banners all started out with the lid of the box opening to reveal the characters, and then closing 15 seconds later to reveal the product. 

The FMV Experience

Problem: How do you not only announce a completely new way to get OnStar, but also inform a public that thinks OnStar is only about Safety about it's other relevant daily uses?

Solution: Create an experience with digital video content explaining how you can use OnStar in your daily life and drop it absolutely everywhere.

Role: Creative Director / Writer / Art Director

We partnered with This Moment who have a platform that allows you to deliver a consistent experience across YouTube, Facebook, Mobile and Online Media. Wherever we found our viewers, we were able to offer up our content. Our content consisted of 4 made-for-digital videos that covered the basics of what OnStar FMV could do for you. I wrote and art-directed the videos with the awesome people at the Mill. There was also a real-time commenting system that allowed comments from anyone at any one of the experiences locations to be seen in all experiences...even the expanded banners.

Launch of the all new Chevy Camaro

Online Media

Problem: Let the world know that the Camaro was back in a big way.

Solution: The biggest Online Media blitz I've ever been a part of.

Role: Digital Creative Director

Launching the all new Chevy Camaro online took a coordinated effort between strategy, account and digital. This might sound like a no brainer, but for an online media campaign - this kind of coordination was rare in those days. Behavioral targeting was still fresh and we tackled it with gusto. We had identified 6 mindsets to work against and had copy written that was relevant for each. We pulled out all the tricks we had learned over the years for making great banners - we had everything from video to expanded panels that were more microsite than they were banners. The above image is just a taste of all the executions we ran for that launch.

The Launch Site

Problem: How do you answer a humongous online media blitz?

Solution: With a microsite that brings the banner's promise to life.

The Camaro launch site was a big experience that the Camaro itself guided you through. Driving from section to section the site design got the heck out of the way and let the Camaro shine.  The centerpiece was a configurator that let you build your own Camaro from the ground up.

Rise of the Chevy Autobots

Problem: Chevy wanted to use the release of the first Transformers movie as a way to reaffirm it's place in popular culture. 

Solution: Let people become Chevy Transformers online. 

Role: Art Director / Writer / Game Designer

This is, and will always be, my favorite baby. After I presented the game to Steven Spielberg he gave me two thumbs up and said "Very cool!" 

This was a social game before their were social games. Facebook was still a minor player and Myspace was king.

This was a 3 month story that put you into the role of a Chevy Transformer. The experience was a fighting game wrapped within a story that played out through blog posts from Bumblebee himself. Bumblebee was recruiting Autobots here on earth to help fight deceptions and needed your help. He would send puzzles that needed to be solved, which opened new abilities for the game.  Some of the puzzles took players to Chevy.com to find codes, or to actual Print pieces in publications. 

When you first joined the game you "built" a bot from one of 7 Chevy's. Your bot would have powers directly born from that vehicles features. You could then level up your bot by sparring with other players in a simple strategic game. You would select 5 moves and send a challenge to an opponent. When that person logged in they could answer the challenge by selected 5 moves for their own bot. You both would then see a replay of the fight and the outcome. 

At the end we had 280,000 players signed on.  One lucky fellow won a trip to the Premier of the movie and we have hundreds of thousands of visits to Chevy.com. 

GM E85 Alternate Reality Game

Problem: GM wanted to seed the idea of using E85 gasoline as a cleaner alternative to gasoline. However, they didn't want to spend a lot of money in the broader public arena.

Solution: Wrap the message in an unbranded interactive story that used viral nature of the web to gain momentum. 

Role: Art Director / Designer / Writer (concept)

My creative director at the time came to me and said that he'd sold the idea of doing some sort of viral thing around e85 and all he had used was an overlay of the Ethanol molecule diagram over the Renaissance building (GM HQ) - which fit almost perfectly. He asked me to figure out how to go from there. That was one of the best moments in my career. 

I came back and said we should make it an Alternate Reality Game and I had a story about a man named Benjamin Stove and it was inspired by Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Sold!

WIBS was social before there was social. We created a forum, two blogs and had shareable art when shareable art was just a glimmer in Myspace's eye. We weren't just online though. We hid messages in books in 6 major cities around the US. These messages were found by the community within a day or two of the puzzle's releases.

In the end WIBS had over 1200 active participants, a news story in the Des Moines Register, and a community created wiki.  

Insist on Olympic Launch Site

Role: Digital Creative Director

Art Direction: Adam Ball

Copy: Rod Weston

Production: CE

I've done or been involved with a fair share of microsites over the years.  This one was a stand out because A. It was just pretty. We shot all the art for ourselves. and B. It was the first one we did in Javascript and CSS. We wanted to inspire people to use Olympic paint/stain and in the process learn about the product. This was a full-screen scroller that took the visitor through the interior and exterior of a home painted and stained with Olympic. 

2008 Chevy Silverado Launch Site

Role: Art Director / Information Architect

Production (Site): Speedshape (CG/Video) / Driftlab (Design/Flash Execution)
Production (Intro Video): Sway (CG/Video) / Pink Noise (Sound Design)

The 2008 Silverado Launch site was a pretty heavy affair. The experience started with a video that showcased 6 models of the Silverado starting with the very first. In anticipation of the first Transformers movie, each of the models transformed into the next.  Once you were in the site, the showpiece interaction was handing the reigns to the visitor to transform their own 2008 Silverado. Basically it was a video configurator that allowed you to select everything from color to wheels to a tonneau cover.

Here is the Intro video that opened the site:

2007 Chevy Avalanche Launch Site

Role: Art Director / Information Architect

Production: Speedshape (CGI/Video) / LitFuse (Design/Flash Execution)

This was the first microsite I completely owned. In those days we didn't have Content Strategists or Information Architects, and I used to walk 5 miles in the snow to work everyday. It was a full-video virtual walk-around of the Avalanche in a one of the locations from the broadcast spots. It was made up of 50+ videos, and had this great zoom-through sequence that would take you through the guts of the vehicle from the keyhole out the exhaust pipe. Ah, still a great site.