Our new ad campaign has a distinctive look that’s sure to catch the eye of any car fanatic. We sat down with the agency team to get the inside scoop on its creation.
Red Kap: You guys had a pretty ambitious concept for this ad campaign. The idea of constructing a work shirt out of parts of an iconic car—where does an idea like that come from?
io Studio: The concept behind the entire campaign—Built From the Same Stuff You Are—drove all the specific executions. We know that our audience is passionately interested in the details that make up cool cars. We also know they tend to really love those models that have come to be regarded as classic icons. These ads play to both, while reinforcing the idea that shirts are what we’re selling. The individual car parts represent all the history, knowledge and passion that drive the Red Kap team to create true performance workwear.
RK: How did you decide what vehicles to use?
io: Similar to Red Kap, we take a hands-on approach to learn about our audience by talking to them where they live. For the automotive audience, we visited garages, scoured online forums and subscribed to the same magazines they do. There are also best practices and industry standards that we follow.
RK: What was the most challenging part of creating the ads?
io: We knew it was important to get the details right, because our audience knows the difference. But from a practical standpoint, taking apart a real car doesn’t make a lot of sense. So we used a combination of scale-model parts, real parts and computer-generated parts. We also needed to shoot real people on a real garage floor, so there was a separate photo shoot just for those elements. Combining everything convincingly was simply a matter of talented people putting in lots of hours to get every last piece perfect. It’s really no different than the work that goes into special effects sequences for videos and feature films. In fact, our in-house video effects team did the lion’s share of the compositing work.
RK: Are you pleased with how they turned out?
io: Absolutely! This was a labor of love for the entire agency team. Not just because we’re big believers in the Red Kap brand, but because we knew this concept would present the brand to the automotive market in a very fresh and compelling way. We’re thrilled with the end result and grateful for the opportunity to see this vision through to completion.
Recognize the car used in the first ad? Submit your guess for the chance to win a Crew Shirt.