Artificial intelligence hasn't changed the main ingredients of great ads: if you want a campaign to work, you need to make viewers feel emotions and relive real memories and feelings. What AI has changed is how we create those ads.
In this article, we'll cover the steps needed to create an advertising campaign: from the initial idea, to gathering materials, all the way to production and final execution.
In this article, we'll walk you through the production of this AI ad:
All the information that follows is fictional. We included it to give the reader an idea of the entire video creation process.
Brief and Analysis
Before starting with brand research, it's important to understand the client's requests and gather data.
We imagined that Lego wants to promote the Speed Champions Ferrari model car, targeting adult fans (18+) who are passionate about motorsport and collectibles. The goal of the campaign is to position the product as more than a toy: it's a piece of passion, a symbol of fandom.
We then defined the video ad viewer (ICP) using very specific words so they could be easily referenced throughout the creative phase:
adults who grew up with Lego and now have purchasing power.
To understand the context in terms of market size and competitors, we identified the competitors. We found that competitor brands include other collectible model cars (die-cast, Bburago, etc.).
Research and Inspiration
After completing this first phase of data gathering, we moved on to the research and elaboration phase.
At this point, we started looking for data. We researched, reconstructed, and analyzed the brand's history, understanding its roots and brand value. We realized that compared to all other brands, Lego's advantage is the emotional connection to childhood combined with the prestige of the Ferrari brand.
It's around this point that we realized the video ad narrative should revolve.
We then began collecting inspiration from Lego and Ferrari's advertising history:
Lego Campaign with a man I a room trying to build a lego machine
Then we broadened our scope by researching and analyzing previous successful campaigns in the same or different industries. These campaigns could also give us points of inspiration, especially for small details. For instance:
We also analyzed current trends to see if we could find a virality angle. This point isn't central: we never try to force it. If the brand's identity doesn't align with the trend, no trend will work.
At this point, we gathered our data and conclusion: to evoke strong emotions, we needed to tell the story of a "tifoso" who has lived his life as a devoted Ferrari fan and who, through his little model car, relives powerful moments from his life: not just related to sports, but also emotional ones (that's why we included lines like: "I built it with my own hands," "so many races, dad").
Creative Strategy
We then moved on to defining the key messages of the ad. We wanted to convey that:
Some passions are born when we're young and stay with us for life
Lego was there to help us build those passions when we were kids
Lego creates bonds with people: we remember who gave us the little car and who helped us build it
We then defined the tones of the narration: we wanted it to sound warm, nostalgic, emotional but with a touch of excitement and anticipation (like waiting for race day).
Once that was done, we thought about the emotions we wanted to convey: the true values of sport that the bond between a fan and their team transcends results.
In fact, in one scene we show that even when Ferrari is losing, the protagonist stays loyal to his little car. The Lego car becomes the symbol of an unbreakable connection.
Concept and Ideation
We had all the elements, now we needed to put them together.
We brainstormedideas and summarized them into a few short phrases:
A father-son story passing down the passion
A tifoso's journey to Monza
The Lego car as a "lucky charm" through the years
We then developed the creative concept: we follow Enzo, a lifelong Ferrari tifoso, and his little Lego car, a gift from his father that has accompanied him through decades of fandom.
We had the narrative.Now we needed to define the visual style. We decided to use a cartoon/animation style to evoke warmth, nostalgia, and playfulness reflecting both the Lego brand and childhood memories.
Remember that style must serve story. We didn't choose cartoon because it's trendy, we chose it because it visually represents the playfulness of Lego and the warmth of childhood memories. Every aesthetic choice should have a reason.
Moodboard
We moved on to defining the moodboard by collecting the exact colors, elements, shades, and tones.
In our brand kit on Videotok, we obviously had to include Ferrari red (#FF2800).
We then created a palette for the landscape as well, because we wanted to recreate Italian racing heritage tones: warm yellows and oranges (sunset at Monza).
Finally, we added another style to our brand kit that included all of Lego's primary colors.
We defined the elements of each subject and scene in the narrative:
Old photos behind the little car to evoke memories of the past
A scene with the child featuring vivid colors that actually recall a child's room
The armchair scene to look natural with books and decorative objects,but not too many, to draw attention to the Lego box
We continued with every detail and every scene.
Script and Storyboard
We developed the script for the video ad and divided it according to the narrative fragments we wanted to tell:
the full script this of the ad video
Based on those same narrative fragments, we began creating the entire storyboard:
Storyboard with all the image go Ferrari and lego
Production
We moved on to video production based on all the elements we had gathered.
We created the brand kit so we could recall the styles we had developed in the previous phases whenever we needed them with just one click.
We then started building the video. In this video tutorial, you'll find exactly what we did step by step:
After creating all the assets, we arranged all the scenes in the editor to build the narrative. We then finished the final touches and the video was published on our platforms.
Videotok video editor
The process is very simple. Just follow what we did step by step and you'll be able to recreate your own video ads in no time using all the advantages of AI.
