Arena Multimedia: 3D commercials enter the arena

If you have always loved 3D (three-dimentional) movies, be prepared to be wowed by commercials in 3D now. You will not have to take off your 3D glasses in the theatre when watching the country’s first 3D ad, ‘Dudolls’, crafted by Arena Multimedia, the multimedia and animation education arm of Aptech.

Using 3D stereoscopy technology, Arena wants to create a high brand recall for animation and multimedia as compelling career options. The ad depicts alphabets used to spell Arena as one-eyed cartoon characters, or Dudolls. These come alive with energy and animate their own performance, even as a young man makes a promising career with his knowledge of animation.

With this campaign, Arena has moved on from pursuading parents to trying to attract potential students. “Our last commercial was live-action and had a different insight of a parent’s perspective. The consumer insight for our latest commercial is from the youth’s perspective,” says Ninad Karpe, MD and CEO, Aptech.

Karpe credits foresight for launching a 3D ad that showcases the product offering in the ad’s execution itself. But a television commercial in 3D would restrict it to mainly theatres as of now, which are fitted with the needed technology, unlike TV sets in most households. Karpe justifies, “Since we are future ready, once the mass media are available, we shall be able to run these 3D commercials on new-age devices too.” He informs that the advertisement is trending well on social networks and generating a good number of ‘likes’ from viewers.” Sachin Vaidya, managing partner at Talking Donkeys Live, the creative agency for the commercial, adds, “The ratio of animated to non-animated television commercials (TVCs) in India is one to eight; if you look at most of the TVCs, they are either song-based or fast-paced montages appealing to the emotions, while others are testimonials. But with Arena, we created a clutter-breaking communication in 3D, which combines both animation and live action.”

Vaidya says change is already on the way: “3D is the future of the TV medium. In India, a lot many households have started shifting to 3D televisions sets as technology allows them to watch their favourite programes in 3D or 2D, even if they are not originally shot in 3D. Also it is always good to be the first-mover and with Arena Animation it was a natural choice, given the nature of business they are in, which is 3D, 2D, VFX and web learning.”

Industry estimates say about 80 per cent of students expressing interest in multimedia opt for animation training. Around half of those opting for animation have prior knowledge of 3D formats while the rest join to learn about this upcoming method of rendering. Apart from a pan-India presence, Arena has also gone international with more than 60 centres in 20 countries with a total turnover of Rs 210 crore in 2011-12. According to the KPMG-FICCI Frames report in 2012, the Indian animation, VFX and post-production industry clocked around Rs 3,100 crore in 2011, a robust growth of 31 per cent over 2010.