"Upping the ante on grabbing the attention of consumers. It's so refreshing to see someone utilizing interactivity in this environment. Very clever." —juror Kevin Farnham
"Every once in a while there's a project that makes me think 'Wow, it would have been fun to work on that.' This is one of those projects." —juror Diane Andolsek
Overview: This astonishing life-sized "hologram" appeared in Lexus storefronts around the United States in 2005. Actually a projection on a nearly invisible screen, it was fully interactive, allowing passersby to spin the car, change its color and even drive it through a virtual landscape.
• Light conducting acrylic mesh screen
• CG animation
• 10-city, 2-month deployment
Comments by Team One:
"While many similar luxury cars excel in performance, the new Lexus IS excels in luxury, technology and performance. So for the IS tagline, Team One asked, 'Why live in one dimension?'
"Our target market consisted of tech-savvy professionals with access to a variety of media, so it was going to take an innovative idea to grab their attention and capture their imagination. The result was a life-sized interactive hologram that would allow people to rotate the IS, change its colors and make it drive.
"The project provided some unique challenges. First of all, no one had any experience creating a hologram—much less one the size of a car. Luckily we found a company in Denmark, viZoo, that had created something called Free Format. While it doesn't produce a true hologram, Free Format creates the illusion of a hologram by projecting film onto a transparent screen.
"While searching nationwide for large storefronts in high-profile, heavily trafficked areas, we hired Imaginary Forces to create the CG animations for the hologram and continued to work with viZoo to create the touchscreen interface that would allow people to interact with the IS.
"When the hologram finally made its debut under the bright lights of New York's Time Square, it was obvious that our hard work had paid off. A massive crowd formed as curious passersby watched and interacted with it; the crowd eventually became so large that police showed up to handle the crowd.
"After New York, the hologram made successful stops in ten cities in just over two months."
