Have you ever heard about visual effects? Well, visual effects or VFX has been used to create mind-blowing films and branded content videos for advertisement that are both memorable but also true to their intended theme. Thanks to advances in technology, VFX can be harnessed by film producers or commercial brands in different industries that also need video content that can help companies portray their brands uniquely and colorfully to their customers and the target market

So what is VFX or visual effects? Simply VFX is a form of motion graphics that is manipulated using computer software to generate images or rather imagery that does not exist in the real world. This form of motion picture art is usually achieved through a special VFX studio where talented VFX artists offer the right connections between real-world footage and computer-generated effects to be seen in the final production video.
Visual effects can be generated using software, and even certain special paintings alongside other techniques to generate special effects and characters which can be included in live-action footage. This technique is mostly utilized in video production for films and also for video games. More recently, VFX has been put into use in the advertising industry. Advertising agencies and marketers for big and medium brands have discovered that VFX can be used to produce great brand content which is unique and which makes their brands stand out.
Is VFX necessary
Well to answer this question think about your favorite movie, maybe it might be The lord of the rings or Pirates of the Caribbean. These mentioned movies utilized a heavy dose of VFX to come up with awe-striking worlds that glued you till the very end. It is not just in movies, most definitely VFX in advertising has been relied upon to create memorable brand content for top businesses and corporations in the world, there are so many brands’ advertisements that will be flat and irrelevant if VFX wasn’t utilized to enhance them.
In the marketing world, a brand that stands out is what businesses are always looking for. It helps their product or service stick out and drive brand fanaticism and loyalty up. Renault once utilized VFX in one of their memorable advertisement. In their Hulk advertisement, Renault uses the character of Hulk, a marvel studio character that is computer-generated. In this advertisement, Hulk saves the city of Sao Paulo from falling space debris. Whenever I watch an Avengers film then a Renault always comes to mind due to the hulk scene. Now that is what good VFX does to an ad spot.

Using VFX in advertising to create a magical dimension which is in turn incorporated with your brand content gives a very touching and beautifully enhanced message which stick with your customers and prospect alike. It also breaks the monotony of using day-to-day scenarios and drama in both film production and content videos. Using VFX can really up the creative game of a film producer or an artist trying to create brand content.
VFX is a universe of its kind, it entails more than special effects in films or raging fires, explosions, or superheroes flying through skies. By utilizing powerful computers and software, you will find photo-realistic creatures and humanoids that are computer generated and software-generated scenarios that seem impossible to even exist anywhere in the galaxy.
Then again, it allows for creative people in advertisements to create digital content that is based on reality even though it was artificially produced.
Why do you need to incorporate VFX in your brand content videos for advertisement?

By including VFX into your brand content video, you create a unique appeal to anybody watching the video. This is because you will create environments that resonate with what you can use to communicate with. You will be able to manipulate the environment using computer-generated imagery software and create unique scenes that cannot be captured in any real-life place or time. As a result, you increase the possibilities and preference of anybody to watch your brand content video.
Again, VFX in advertising gives your brand content a movie-like effect which is very captivating. Most creatives inside advertising agencies will appreciate how a film like an advertisement breaks the monotony of most commonly plain acted ads. If your VFX enhanced advertisement is meant for on-air, like between a sitcom or a reality TV show, it will breathe a cinematic appeal to the viewers.
VFX also increases brand awareness to your customers and prospect. A VFX content video can use so many effects and dimensions that do not depend on real-life scenarios. With such a huge canvas to exercise creativity, marketing people from commercial brands can come up with ideas that communicate and increase brand awareness to the viewers. VFX breaks the limit of what you can work with to tailor-make your brand content.
It can be harnessed to create some sense of fantasy in a rather ordinary scene. When creating brand content advertising for a target audience let’s say of kids, then you will need to create giant or imagined characters, fairies, or even unicorns to make it so appealing to them. All this can be created in a VFX studio, even though such characters do not exist in real life.
Incorporating VFX can increase the popularity of a video, this causes a brand to stand out in the competitive business world. As an advertising agency, you can create memorable scenes and characters using computer-generated imagery in a VFX studio, even if such an in-film environment doesn’t exist or cannot be located easily. This will make your branded videos used for advertising seem larger than life which will increase the chances of your brand content going viral.
It is also cheaper to create an out-of-the-world brand video for advertising using VFX, instead of creating a new world from zero to shoot on it. How? Well, all you need is to hire a VFX studio, like SAGA VFX, and you can recreate Mars or The Arctic environment. You do not have to go to these remote and extreme places to film in real life. It will be very expensive or even impossible to ship your production crew and actors to take footage of them in such extreme places. The creation of objects, environment, creatures can easily be done and manipulated to suit the message too in a VFX studio, like SAGA VFX.
Lastly, VFX reduces the dangers of creating a branded content that might be risky do in reality. You might want to incorporate a dangerous great white shark to swim alongside a surfing actor when trying to advertise a swimming customer for your brand that seems macho. To do so in real life will be impossible, your actor might be preyed on by the shark. By using VFX you eliminate such dangers but still come up with what you intend to communicate in the first place in the safety of a VFX studio. You will also produce a jaw-dropping ad.
So, if you are thinking of including some visual effects in your next video, contact us at SAGA VFX , we can prepare a tailored proposal to make your ideas come true.
Famous and exemplary advertisements that rode on VFX to glory
Super Bowl is notable for airing expensive, both famous and infamous ads that captivate the audience. Let me take you back to the 2012 super bowl class of VFX. You will remember the Audi’s Vampire party which was well endowed with a theme from the twilight saga where the vampire phenomenon is briefly used to sell the effectiveness of the car. To achieve that cinematic punch, VFX was well utilized together with other techniques. In the Twilight saga movies, there are vampires and wolves, but I want to narrow down on the wolves which are extremely huge than the real-life types. Coming up with such feats VFX is normally utilized to generate what is normally referred to as computer-generated imagery. I would imagine that commercial without the use of VFX.

Back to the super bowl ads, another immersive advertisement that heavily relied on VFX to bring out a great cinematic effect of the ad was a commercial by the American auto car maker Chevrolet. They employed super VFX techniques to come up with apocalyptic scenarios. The brand content of the 2012 end of the world advertisement had a lot of doomsday effects that were very enticing to the audience. That level of dramatic effect can only be achieved thanks to VFX.
Away from the Super bowl. John Lewis’ Buster the box came through by creating emotions in those micro-expressions frames executed through VFX. Besides the usual macho and explosive kinds of stuff that are usually recreated through VFX like superheroes landing crushing jets or maybe fighting alien monsters, this ad showed us that tender human emotions like care, concern, joy, friendship can be generated through this technique. Woodland creatures created by computers in a VFX studio were brought to life and the video was so surreal.
There are a lot of amazing advertisements by mega brands in the world that have depended on VFX to have an edge in the commercial world. Coca-Cola usually uses a lot of VFX enhanced commercials that bring out the best of family, happiness, togetherness, holidays together, and joy. However, my last great example for you in this article is of a well-known ad that utilized this carefully executed technique of computer-generated imagery is by Lego. The drive what you love ad employed a well-known film director David Mellor to create an action-packed CGI commercial that is very captivating for anyone who watches it. This is what Charlie Bayliff a Framestore VFX supervisor had to say about the production of the commercial “The cars and their drivers shift multiple times between live-action and CG Digi-doubles and it’s a real testament to our team’s work that it’s almost impossible to spot the difference between them.”