AKQA: Interactive Innovators

By Dustin Driver



At AKQA, content is king. The global interactive agency knows that jaded and jittery consumers can't be nabbed by flashy websites or clever 60-second spots, so AKQA has upped the ante. "There's a greater industry shift toward creating in-depth content," says Group Creative Director Neil Robinson. "We want to make pieces that are entertaining and engrossing. You need to create engaging and relevant content if you want to connect with consumers today."

AKQA uses Macs to create all of their cutting-edge content. "The Mac is at the core of our creative process," says Robinson. "The majority of our creative and development teams use Macs, and we use Final Cut Studio to cut all our footage. iChat allows us to exchange ideas between offices on opposite sides of the globe. Our iPhones keep us connected wherever we are. Macs are reliable, flexible, and powerful. They give us the creative freedom we need to stand out in this field."

The agency's content-rich approach has worked like a charm: AKQA was named one of the "Fast 50 World's Most Innovative Companies" by Fast Company magazine, and Digital Agency of the Year by Advertising Age. It's one of the fastest-growing interactive agencies in the world, with offices in San Francisco, Washington D.C., New York, London, Amsterdam, and Shanghai.

AKQA's clients—companies like Nike, Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Kraft, Target, and Visa—find the agency's content-first strategy especially persuasive. For example, Nike recently commissioned AKQA to craft projects such as a series of in-depth documentaries for Nikefootball.com; an interactive video that lets fans delve into Kobe Bryant's precise plays for Nikebasketball.com; and a dazzling website for the company's latest gear.

Brilliant Plays

Nike knows that sports fans can't get enough of superstar athletes. That's why they hired AKQA to come up with an innovative way to show off Kobe Bryant's brilliance on the basketball court. Robinson and his team decided to shoot high-speed video of Bryant in his natural habitat: a court full of formidable foes. Robinson went to director Jesse Dylan for help with the shoot, and used his MacBook Pro and Final Cut Studio to put it all together.

Thus the Kobe Bryant "One Move Ahead" project was born. The interactive website fuses slow-motion video, motion graphics, and a slick Flash interface to showcase Bryant's basketball skills.

"It was the first time that Nike had commissioned AKQA to do a shoot for this type of project," says Robinson. "We met Kobe and explained the concept to him. During the shoot we used digital cameras to ghost the high-speed film cameras, and to make live comps on the set using our MacBook Pros and Photoshop. It was important that our systems worked flawlessly, as you normally don't get a chance to do retakes with an athlete like Kobe."

AKQA built a Flash site that allows users to view the footage at various speeds, revealing the intricacies of Bryant's moves. "One speed displays the game the way you and I see it," says Robinson. "Then there's a speed that represents how Kobe sees the play. We then provided a third, super-slow-motion speed, which allows ballers to explore how Kobe anticipates and outwits his opponents."

The film footage was scanned to digital and edited in Final Cut Studio. The AKQA effects team added motion graphics to further expound upon Bryant's moves, and the agency development team brought it all together in Flash for the web. "Speed was key for us," says Robinson. "The day we came back, we did our editing in Final Cut and then made a working prototype in Flash. Final Cut is incredibly intuitive for us, and the workflow is incredibly fast. Maintaining creative momentum is massively important in these types of projects, and Final Cut comes through."

Gearing Up

Nike is known for creating radical gear, from their well-known Nike Max Air shoes to space-age outerwear. And like any company with innovative products, they like to show off the latest and greatest. So AKQA stepped in to create a video-rich website called NikeLab.com, which features in-depth interviews of Nike engineers, footage of athletes in action, and live news feeds. Again, AKQA shot the footage and cut it using Final Cut Studio.

"We worked with Superfad to shoot video of the various shoes in order to highlight the new Flywire technology and its performance benefits," says Robinson. "The site is accessible to 23 different locales, which means a lot of translation. We also had to update the main site on a regular basis."

Managing all that data would be tedious without some sort of automation. The AKQA development team employed Apple's Automator software to handle the repetitive tasks. The application, which is included in Mac OS X, gives developers a simple visual interface for building scripts.

"We were dealing with a lot of XML flies for the different translations," says Creative Development Manager Ronnie Liew. "We used an Automator script to rename the files and copy them to the right place on the web server, rather than having to do it manually. Any one of us could run the tool and have it done in a matter of minutes, and the information would be available for the site right away. It saved us a lot of time."

The San Francisco team also connected an Xserve and Xserve RAID via fiber channel to accelerate the editing process. Editors were able to work on remotely stored files or swap data over the network without hang-ups. "We haven't had any problems with the Xserve," says Robert Burns, IT Director at the AKQA San Francisco office. "The system is being used constantly, more than five days a week. I sometimes come in on the weekend, and there's usually someone working on it. The fact that we haven't had any issues is a real testament to the quality of the hardware."

Preparing for Battle

Football—the sport we call soccer in the states—is the most popular game in the world. Its top players are international superstars, achieving the kind of fame that few on earth ever experience. To give fans an inside look at their world, and a taste of what it's like to train for one of the most intense sports ever conceived, Nike teamed with AKQA to create Nike Bootcamp. The site features more than 40 interviews with world-famous players around the world, providing training drills, tips, and motivation.

A crew from the AKQA London office shot with the Red One high-definition digital camera, dumping QuickTime proxy files into Final Cut Studio to craft rough cuts on location. "Our camera operator used a 17-inch MacBook Pro to download the Red One flash cards and hard drives during the shoot," says Director Alex Wills from the AKQA London office. "He also loaded the QuickTime proxy files directly into Final Cut to check shots and create rough assemblies. The ability to check exposures and create assemblies on the fly whilst shooting was jaw-dropping. It's a staggering new tool for a director."

The London team employed two Final Cut Studio suites wired together through an eight-terabyte Xserve RAID using a fiber-channel connection and Xsan. "For post production and delivery, we decided the only way we would be able to complete such a mammoth, complex task was to tackle it in-house, utilizing the Final Cut suites and the Xsan, and employing two full-time Final Cut editors and a colorist," says Wills.

Nike Bootcamp is just one example of how AKQA blurs the lines between advertising and content. "This type of work points toward a broader trend of interactive agencies creating deep video content, work that goes beyond what you would traditionally think of as advertising."

AKQA hopes that the shift in perspective will sweep the advertising world, giving consumers more than mere ads to look at. "It's a big shift for the industry, and content creation is becoming a huge part of what we do. Tools like Final Cut Studio and the Mac really allow us to explore that type of content and push ourselves to the absolute limit. There's really no other option for us."