The Screensaver is alive and well…

Screensavers are very popular; thousands of people download them everyday and some of the biggest companies in the world use them to promote their brands in difficult channels.

Idealogy have gone a bit screensaver crazy this month too, making a couple of our own for internal use and experimentation (here and here) and and one for the mighty ABB, the global leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility and industry customers to improve their performance while lowering environmental impact. (here)

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ABB’s requirement was in support of the launch of their 'Net Promoter Score' management tool – a system that gauges the loyalty that resides in a business’s customer relationships, and, essentially asks one question; “How likely would you be to recommend us to another business?”

The NPS process categorizes customers into three groups: promoters, passives, and detractors. Promoters represent valuable assets that drive profitable growth because their willingness to recommend. Detractors are liabilities that destroy profitable growth because of their negative reaction and refusal to recommend. And finally Passives are well, just passive!

By calculating the Net Promoter Score (subtracting Detractors from Promoters) global organisations create a business-value metric (akin to net worth or net profit), enabling managers to prioritize and evaluate loyalty-building initiatives.

So, with all that in mind, ABB briefed us about creating an NPS screensaver, but that it shouldn't just be eye-candy. It should also;

1. Promote the NPS concept
2. Inform
3. Hold the viewers attention
4. Still generate interest at whatever point the viewer catches the screensaver's
    visual cycle
5. Provoke further interest

The Design department went for an ‘info-graphics’ look and feel that we felt would re-enforce the messaging that ABB were looking for, and then our intended sequence was storyboarded; at all stages the digital department oversaw the process to make sure that the animation was feasible and could be completed within time and on budget.

One of the main parts of the sequence involved male and female characters (think toilet door icons) running hurriedly in from ‘off screen’ to line up in unison as some data appears. Getting these characters to run would have been very labour intensive a few years ago, but now Adobe Flash provides full support for Inverse Kinematics. This allows the animator to define 'limbs' and 'joints' which when moved or positioned, behave as if they are in the real world; all the connected limbs moving in relation to each other. Magic!

As we said, the screensaver is alive and well. Enjoy!

Posted by Paul Skinner