American Orthodontics (AO), a Wisconsin-based braces manufacturer that works directly with orthodontists worldwide, approached Saturn Lounge about creating a “Braces Made in the USA” campaign early last year. We developed several high-level concepts for the campaign, and AO chose to move forward with “Get the Facts Straight.” After executing a corporate video and portraits for the campaign, we approached AO with another idea. As Eric Olson, Saturn Creative Director stated, “We are always looking for inspiration for our clients and ways to push their marketing further.” Because AO was on a mission to set the facts about braces straight, and because that’s essentially what braces do (set things straight), we saw potential for a clever twist to the campaign that took a light-hearted approach to educating AO’s customers.
Knowing that animated characters are a great way to draw and keep attention in marketing, Saturn pursued a bold approach for more campaign content and messaging. We had the idea of placing braces on the word FACTS to visually communicate “Getting the facts straight”, and then created unique animated dental-themed characters to help communicate a wide variety of messages. “Characters make a brand recognizable, interesting, share-worthy, and more human,” Olson remarked when reflecting on the reasoning behind the idea.
After custom-designing characters and a balloon font, we used 3D animation to create short video clips to be disseminated across a variety of channels. The style of the campaign was fun, colorful and fresh. Through storyboards, sketches and intentional color selection, the characters of the campaign were brought to life. Elements of actual braces from AO were also used in the designs, adding to the authenticity of the campaign.
To drive the campaign further, the AO marketing team collaborated with Saturn and generated a multitude of new iterations for the campaign from print ads to stickers and toys. The project was a resounding success as the teams worked in tandem to make an impact. AO Vice President of Marketing, Michael Terrill, and his team were thrilled with the results. “We were extremely pleased by the positive response AO customers had when they saw our animated videos. Everyone wanted to have them playing in their office! We even had requests to translate the videos into different languages,” Terrill said.
We at Saturn were thrilled as well. From the initial idea to the final execution, the bright and memorable FACTS campaign and its use of engaging portraits along with animated characters made a lasting impression.
View a clip from the campaign below.