fantastic advert/learning content...
Via Zeldman, is this great advert e-learning for the energy company Areva, that shows the end to end process of energy production. It's very similar in graphical style to the brilliant Xplane explanatory illustrations. And this style of animations always remind me of the Richard Scarry books I read as child (in fact I just saw that the director says these were the inspiration for the graphical approach).
The guys who did this animation also did the video for Royksopp, which I think is actually more fun and in-depth - you can watch it from the link.
For me, the brilliant (and most interesting) thing about this advert is the accompanying website, that has a great chunk of interactive content, 'behind the scenes' micro-documentary videos and image downloads. It's a great use of a highly engaging piece of media to drive curiosity. For me, advertising is absolutely the creative benchmark that e-learning content should strive to be - both entertaining and informative and drives people to share, talk about it and want to know more.
In fact this advert is entirely an educational piece (on reflection, I just strikethrough'd the word advert in the first para to this post). I've not really come across any courseware that 'front-loads' it's budget and artistic effort into a short exciting piece and then puts up short content for learners to be enticed to learn more. Well, not exactly true, as I produced a DVD that had this 'exciter' model as it's main design focus (linking to a website with more in-depth content), but it wasn't really as tight (or as beautiful :-) as this advertising campaign.
And onto another favourite theme, this really exemplifies the developing trend for companies discovering a real and immediate need to explain and educate customers about their products, as products become more complex and interlinked. Or as Orange, with their phone trainer and customer 'education' campaigns, found a way to differentiate themselves in a crowded marketplace.
So I've seen the advert, spent 15 minutes learning about uranium extraction and processing and blogged about it. And it's a bloody nuclear power company - boring and disagreeable!! The power of good advertising/education, huh?
by the way, does your company's marketing group work with your education department?
Comments
This stuff is amazing. I spent a long time at the site too, and the music video, while low-res, is incredible. I was entranced from the first watching on how they made the transitions seem natural. The grace shown here points to the clunky nature of a lot of stuff I see that tries to be fun and educational. They always seem stilted. I'm doing something fun, and now it's time to learn, and then on to more fun. Like they are separate.
The coolest thing about this approach is it's embedded context. For adults especially, this built-in context is awesome. Think about explaining an ERP package to workers about to implement one in an oil refinery. They could trace the oil from the ground to pipeline to gas pump, while seeing how each data entry point affects the whole. This would help a lot in change management. Everyone would feel empowered instead of saddled with extra work.
I need to go clean up now, my brain just exploded again. Thanks for pointing this stuff out!
Posted by: Scott Palmer | April 14, 2004 01:12 PM
Brilliant! Even though the Flash movies are a linear presentation, the constant motion -- side-to-side, scrolling up -- gives it an extra dimension, removing it from the realm of page-turning. And check out the chunking of content... most of the courses I work on use "chunks" of text that are 2-3 paragraphs long. It is truly an art to reduce the chunks to less than 40 words. And the illustrations are fantastic, reminding more of SimCity or eboy (http://www.eboy.com/pages/works/ecity/) illustrations than Richard Scarry, but still in that hyper-detailed orthographic genre. I wonder how much the site cost and how long it took to create. (As an extra bonus, I now understand exactly how "yellowcake" and "aluminum centrifuge tubes" fit into the whole Iraq War debate.)
Posted by: evan | April 14, 2004 03:31 PM