REELS PROJECTS BLOG

picture of portobello rd gin banner

EXPANDING THE BRAND THROUGH EDUCATION

 

HISTORY OF GIN IN 90 SECONDS

Leelex, the company behind the Portobello Road gin contacted me with a project in mind.
They wanted to do something special for their New York Launch as well as create a lynchpin for their Ginstitute. They have been growing superfast and were branching into new marketplaces and new market demographics. The Ginstitute is a day long course whereby you get to learn the extensive history of gin, while guzzling a few cocktails in the thematic confines of the first British gin museum in the historic heart of gin history of London. At the end of the journey through history attendees get a chance to create their own gin.

Altogether: Awesome.

scooping ice gif
In close co-operation with the founder team of Ged, Jake and Paul we devised a trident of animated content. animation of dropping ice into glass gif
We would create a infographic motion video for the summary of the historic journey of Gin. In addition an animated treatment of the ‘Perfect Serve’ was commissioned. Their suggested serve is a little different from your usual G&T’s as it utilises a fresh and tangy pink grapefruit peel as a garnish. We wanted to provide their potential customers a teaser for the experience as well as educate in the best way to consume their gin. The bartender was rotoscoped giving it hand-made intangible, vintage feel and helping it tie up with their victorian inspired illustrations already set out within the brand formulae.

 

animation of pouring portobello road gin into a glass gif Further to this I enhanced the real life by adding smears, action lines and further accenting reality and movement in order to create a world of beyond. (I always had a soft spot for Orcs in Bakshi’s LoTR)

I scattered some of the visual information chronologically on this page as little gifs. It allows for a wealth of information to be quickly and efficiently transferred and following this you’ll be able to build your own Portobello Road G&T.

In order to create the ‘History’ piece I loaded up with gin books and attended and recoded the whole session in order to asses how to best transfer utilise the wealth of information provided. Jake Burger, the keeper of knowledge, provided me with a wealth of visual information alongside the indispensable research factoids.animation of a portobello road gin pour cut off

Having so much data to cram into a, relatively, short video each segment of the gin history was treated as a stylistically different piece. The eras were described by the illustrations and paintings of their respective times. This way we could impart a lot of latent information, while keeping the content punchy and fast. In order to keep cohesion a cut-out style of animation was used throughout.
It would provide them with a video with large longevity to be used in various campaigns in future.animation of opening a bottle of tonic with a bar blade gif

Educating your audience in order to increase brand awareness and ultimately sell the product is a successful and established strategy. Today with the ease of creation and low fiscal entry point of video distribution it becomes a great compliment with the source product. It enforces the brand, providing value to the consumer. In order to convert on mass scale rewarding obtained attention in todays marketplace is crucial.animation of pouring tonic from a small bottle into a glass of gin gif

We were fortunate that the subject matter was brimming with quirky tales interwoven with the social and political developments of the country. animation of slicing pink grapefruit skin gif

The epic journey of gin is a tale of religion, war, kings, the craze and technology. The change of culture through technological advancements and the advent of modern communication.

Initially we, bravely, aimed for a 60 second version, but with so much many centuries of information we felt it would need 90 seconds to do it justice. The video incorporates hundreds of images from history and spans over half a millennia of story.

animation of rimming the portobello road gin and tonic with a pink grapefruit gif

To tie up the whole project a kinetic logo of their Portobello Lion brand logo was produced. It was inspired by the lion of Metro Goldwyn Mayer as well as the animations from Charge of the light brigade by R. Williams.

animation of zesting a portobello road g&t

Ginstitute has recently expanded into a hotel and a distillery so if you’re in London, strolling down Notting Hill do pop in for a swift G&T.

animation of placing garnish in the portobello road g&t and presenting the drink