Objective

This concept aimed to create a visually disruptive and engaging social media post that leverages the iconic Transformers franchise. By having Bumblebee "crash" through the Instagram and Facebook interfaces, we're breaking the fourth wall and bringing these beloved characters directly into the viewer's digital space. 

The core idea is to capture the clumsy and relatable side of adolescence, even for giant robots. As young Transformers learn to control their transformations, mistakes are bound to happen. This relatable experience, amplified by the unexpected disruption of the familiar Instagram interface, creates a humorous and memorable moment.

GOALS: 

• Grab attention: The unexpected visual of Bumblebee breaking through the UI instantly disrupts the user's scroll and captures their attention.
• Drive engagement: The relatable concept encourages interaction (likes, shares, comments) as users connect with the humorous situation.
• Generate excitement: By showcasing the Transformers in a fresh, playful context, the post aims to generate excitement and buzz around the franchise.

Strategy

In order to execute our plan, we lifted the finished scene of Bumblebee from the film where he transforms for the first time, trimming the footage down to the perfect frame. This allowed us to rotoscope Bumblebee from the footage, creating the illusion of him breaking away from his in-movie environment and invading the social platform’s interface. In the original source, the angle of his leap wouldn’t work, so we needed to carefully extend the edges of the shots and rotate the film as he launched into the air. We then needed to take a freeze frame of Bumblebee and animate it rotating slowly in a descending motion, adding moving lighting to Bumblebee as we animated the social apps interface whipping by at an incredibly fast speed. Combining these two elements created a sense of frenetic speed and kinetic energy of our hero in freefall.

To emphasize the impact of the crash, we animated the character's landing at the bottom of the frame while simultaneously applying a shake effect to all the elements within the scene. In addition, we needed to extend the shot itself, and parts of Bumblebee, to accommodate the explosive landing — comping in 3D debris and smoke to sell the final look in a way that was seamless and true to the original footage. 

Results

Users on both Instagram and Facebook reported being simultaneously delighted and surprised by this digital stunt, commenting with glee, shock and wonder. The tone of the comments we received included:

• “That was awesome!!!!!!! Am I the only one who watched it like 5 times in a row?”
• “Loved that, you got me lol”
• “Creativity at its peak.”
• “I was like wow wow wtf do it again 😂”
• “That was a cool post!🔥”
• “That was actually 🔥🔥🔥 I happened to start scrolling down right at the perfect timing I thought I was crazy for a second 🤣🤣🤣”
• “OMFFFGGGG”

With a 1:5 share-to-like ratio on Facebook we knew we had created a stellar social asset that generated excitement with audience members. 

Media