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?