iAD iPhone & Tablet
Highlander Cargo Carnival
Date
2013
Client/Agency
Toyota/Acne
Role
Creative Direction, Design & 3D
Case Study - 1:36
Toyota partnered with the Muppets for the launch of the all-new Highlander and wanted an interactive game that could run natively on iPhone and iPad through the iAd platform. The brief was simple, make it fun, make it feel like the Muppets, and keep it moving. These were ads, not apps, so the experience had to hook people fast and keep them coming back.
The Challenge
The Muppets assets we had to work with were still photography. No rigs, no motion files, just static images of characters that people know and love for being completely alive and expressive. The challenge was taking those stills and animating them in a way that felt believable and in character while the game was actually being played. Getting Fozzie or Animal to feel like themselves from a flat cutout took a lot of care.
The Approach
The game had three levels, each with its own mechanic. A cannon shooter where players launched Muppets into the Highlander, a whack-a-mole style level, and a tap-to-block round. All three were built around the natural gestures of the device, swiping, tapping, quick reaction-based interactions that required no explanation and no patience. Inside an ad unit you get neither.
The carnival theme tied directly into the Highlander's campaign positioning around fun and space, and cycling through different Muppet characters and views of the vehicle across levels kept things fresh and gave people a reason to keep going. The design had to hold up across both iPad and iPhone without one feeling like a lesser version of the other, so both were built as their own considered experiences.
iPad Designs
The Outcome
The game shipped as a native iAd on both devices, one of the earlier and more ambitious examples of what the format could do when the mechanics and content were built specifically for the platform rather than adapted to it.
Jeff Levine
Fake-Up
Creative Director, Designer & Artist