Advanced Television

Sky unveils Sky Q ad campaign

February 11, 2016

Sky says it will “break new ground with a visually spectacular advertising campaign” for the launch of Sky Q, its next generation home entertainment system.  The campaign is the biggest and most ambitious in Sky’s 27 year history and will roll out in the UK and Ireland from 12 February 2016.

An arresting campaign, produced by creative agency Brothers and Sisters, will make use of futuristic 60-second spots.  The ads illustrate how the family of advanced Sky Q products connect wirelessly to create an ecosystem that makes TV viewing seamless – known as Fluid Viewing.   The result sees dramatic content like Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron exploding from one screen and embarking on an epic journey around the home in the form of droplets, before vividly splashing and reforming onto the next screen.  The ads play out to the soulful, live soundtrack of “I’ve Gotta Be Me” by Sammy Davis Jr.

The ads, shot by award-winning director Johnny Green who has worked for major brands around the world including Nike, Under Armor, Cisco and Honda, are an innovative collaboration of world class production techniques and design across film, sound and lighting.  The film makers have pushed the technology to the limit, with VFX specialists, The Mill, crafting each droplet of content based on the real movements and interactions of fluid. The campaign will be the most innovative ever on screen, and reinforces Sky Q as the most anticipated TV technology launch in 2016.

The campaign will be delivered across multiple media channels including TV, radio, cinema and print, as well as detailed use of digital and social channels.  The digital execution includes a number of firsts for both Sky and the industry in terms of its innovative use of ad sequencing including digital outdoor, new formats such as Twitter Moments and Facebook Canvas Ads, as well as pioneering display techniques which maximise the impact of the creative on mobile and tablet devices.

Stephen van Rooyen, Chief Marketing, Sales & Digital Officer, Sky, commented: “For our biggest and most innovative technology launch, we wanted our biggest and most innovative ad campaign ever.  On screen we have delivered something that is a truly world class in terms of creative and production.   As the content explodes from screens, viewers will believe it has actually liquefied and that the drops contain real pieces of a movie or TV show. The fluid ethos of Sky Q will be carried over into how we deliver the campaign across multiple traditional, digital and social media platforms”.

Andy Fowler, Executive Creative Director, Brothers and Sisters, added: “As always Sky wanted to push the limits of creativity. Getting to something truly original has required mind-boggling skill and effort. The whole thing took one year including five months of intensive pre-production prior to any filming.  In total the ads involved 52 artists, 105 liquid VFX shots, over 4,000 individual simulations and an incredible 45,000 hours of rendering to get the ads just perfect.”

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