Exclusive Q&A with ATTIK CD Ron Lim on the new Scion campaign.

Ron Lim was promoted to ATTIK creative director just this year, but he's already put a major stamp on the agency's creative product - as evidenced by the new Scion tC mega-campaign, "Enter the Machine." The highly technical campaign features a teaser campaign in print and TV, a bar-setting augmented reality game, a :60 3D cinema spot and more.

Ron gave The San Francisco Egotist an exclusive interview about the challenges ATTIK faced from such a tech-forward campaign and how the entire concept came together.

So let's start at the beginning: what was the assignment from Scion for the tC and what strategy did ATTIK take?
Scion is introducing the next-gen tC and wanted to make a lot of noise. The new model has much improved performance and they wanted to play that up. To show off the handling, we wanted to avoid the typical clichés of maneuvering around orange cones or falling rocks, so we invented "the Machine." Scions have always been known as an urban car, so we decided to have a city coming to life that would throw everything it has at the tC.

Give us the overview of the campaign and all the tactical elements that are involved.
We chose to treat the release of the new tC like the release of a new Hollywood blockbuster. First we rolled out a teaser trailer, then a website, then the full length spot. We have a lenticular poster in movie theaters teasing the sixty second 3-D spot in front of Resident Evil. We also had a rich media Augmented Reality game far beyond any previous AR game. As the campaign progresses, you'll see a lot of similarity to the release of a movie. After another week, you'll even get alt scenes and outtakes (really quite close to stuff you'd find on a BluRay disc) that you can seamlessly branch into the commercial itself.

How much convincing did the client need? We imagine this kind of technology is new territory for an automaker.
We're lucky to have a bold partner like Scion. We push them and they push us. We point them toward new technologies and mediums, and they're never satisfied with the status quo. Simon Needham, our CD, is a taskmaster about that stuff... always pushing us to think bigger.

How did the AR gaming piece come about and what were the technical and creative challenges that you encountered?
ATTIK and Scion push each other to be at the forefront of cool new technologies. AR's been done, but never in this way or at this level of detail. Instead of using the AR marker as an activation device, we really made it part of the experience. Using the marker as a steering wheel was beyond what other AR games had used markers for. And the graphics were also far beyond any other AR experience. We consider ourselves lucky have worked with North Kingdom, who really came through for us in helping bring our idea to life.

What about the 3D piece? Have you guys done anything like that before? We have to imagine concepting a 3D spot is a very different animal than a traditional spot.
Honestly, we always start with the idea. The cinema spot works just as well in 2D as in 3D because we started with a cool concept. We were wary of bad 3D, so we consulted with theater chains, stereographers and VFX professionals. Bad 3D usually involves things being thrown at the viewer, while good 3D is about letting the effect bring the action to life without resorting to such gimmicks. We kept the action very grounded.

Read the rest of the interview after the jump.

What kind of learning curve did the creative team have across the various technologies? Does ATTIK do anything specific to make sure creatives are up-to-date on all this stuff?
The great thing about ATTIK is that we don't work in silos. The various creative departments literally sit right beside each other. The ad guys, Mike Brenner and Greg Coffin, concepted the Machine device and they worked closely with our interactive guys, Jacob Ford and Jeff Fang, to bring the idea to life online. It's not even about hourly meetings, it's just leaning over to your right and sharing all the cool stuff you're doing.

Start to finish, how long did it take to create the entire "Take On the Machine" campaign?
I'd say it was six or seven months from concepting to seeing the first print ad.

On auto accounts, dealers and dealership groups are a notoriously vocal (and old school) bunch. Have you received any comments or heard any feedback from them?
The campaign is still pretty fresh but they did play a roughcut of the cinema spot at the last dealer meeting and it went over like gangbusters. The dealers were psyched when they heard about the whole program.

Is this the entirety of the campaign or is there more coming in the future?
Mobile vans will soon add a new dimension with a rolling 3-D experience, and the "Choose Your Own Adventure" content will go live on the website at www.TakeOntheMachine.com next week.

Do you feel like you‚ve now raised the bar for Scion campaigns? Are you going to have to keep topping yourself as far as creativity and technology go?
We're always raising the bar on our campaigns. Our last campaign was a reality show, this is a 3D cinema experience. As far as topping ourselves, anytime we think we can't go any further, some new medium pops up. And we never exploit it, we embrace it. We don't use this stuff as a cheap gimmick; we maximize the potential. We're always trying to maximize the clients' and our own potential.