Scott Muckenthaler
Entertainment Partnerships
Putting the product experience in new and fun places.
Quick take
Big brand meets up with big shows to make some cool expereinces – both large and small. Some of the most fun I've had with work.
brand
Hyundai
date
2013, 2018
challenge
Find the overlapping space between our products and great entertainment properties to make something memorable.
role
Creative Director
Selected platform experience.
The Walking Dead
Ant Man
When the zombie apocalypse comes, will your ride be ready?
Through Hyundai’s product integration partnership with The Walking Dead TV series, we discovered fans love to argue about the answer to that question. And with the launch of the Chop Shop app, they had the chance to show us exactly what their ideas of “ready” looked like. In fact that was the principle idea behind the Chop Shop and the reason there were well over a trillion unique ways fans could configure their Zombie Survival Machines.
Welcoming survivors to the experience.
In the app we gave people three Hyundai vehicles to start with – and then hundreds of choices to customize. From armor, to weapons, to survival supplies and camo the Chop Shop had survivalists covered. There were even decals to add the decorative touch. We also crowd-sourced fans for their part ideas. And from the thousands of submissions we took five of the favorites and brought them to life for the app.
Veloster, Santa Fe and Elantra were the three base-vehicles.
Tryig out all kinds of armor and weapons.
Rotate the scene to check out your build.
Name and save your builds.
Building the app
The Horde Plow, Doom Whistle, Haunted Armor and Decomp Blower were among the favorite parts for the most avid fans.
The production pipeline for all the parts took us from hilarious debates, to concept sketches to illustrations, to 3D wireframes and finally to fully textured CG components ready for the app. All in the effort to support our concept to let people show off their visions of survial.
Our custom logo for the entire platform and the app icon.
Establishing a chop shop look.
From the beginning we knew we were going for a specific style for the cars. One that would go away from the typical ramshackle, post-apocalyptic, thisisallIcouldfind-looking vehicles. Everyting on the cars had to have the authentic apocalypse essence, but in a way that was tailored to each of the cars to make them look cool and tough. Ultimately a look that gave you some sort of confidence that you'd survive.
While the brand had it's media deal with the TV series on AMC, the critial relationship that helped the Chop Shop take shape was with the creators of The Walking Dead franchise – principally it's long running graphic novel series. The team at Skybound Entertainment was instumental in guiding the aesthetic approach for parts through initial sketches by their comic artists and check-ins as the production pipeline kicked-in. This start-to-finish production partnership kept the guard-rails up making sure all content was appropriate for the franchise while not blurring any lines with the story in the books or the show.
Beyond the build.
The app experience didn’t stop with the configuring though. Each completed vehicle received a Survivability Score, based on all of the parts chosen. With a currency system also in place, our users had to select parts wisely to get the best scores and earn their bragging rights.
For the more highly motivated survivors, our Walking Dead quiz stocked with over 200 hundred questions helped them earn more currency with each correct answer. More points meant better parts which meant more motivated users and longer engagement times.
A quick cut-scene followed the completion of your build. Your vehicle races across a landscape filled with zombies. At the end of that you got your Survivability Score.
The web hub.
And the best way to see all the ZSM creations? That was handled through the site thewalkingdeadchopshop.com. It gave the program a responsive web solution for handling a few critical elements – with the most visual of these being showcasing the builds from the app.
They came and customized by the hundreds of thousands.
Browse the builds.
Once an app user had put the finishing touches on a build and given it the all important name, a snapshot was taken of their creation and enshrined in the gallery where filters allowed everyone to check out the latest, best, most expensive, stealthiest, speediest and more.
The web hub homepage. Tracking the number of builds and promoting app downloads.
The homepage tally.
The site also established the campaign destination promoting links to the app stores as well as a running tally of ZSMs built, videos and the part ideas submission form.
A catalog previewing all the parts available in the app.
Up close and personal views of all the builds in the gallery.
The tech and UX.
And the best way to see all the ZSM creations? That was handled through the site thewalkingdeadchopshop.com. It gave the program a responsive web solution for handling a few critical elements – with the most visual of these being showcasing the builds from the app.
The app's two dials opened up all the configuring possibilities.
Coupling each part with a “drop-on” animation with a sound effect if being added to the car, we found an ideal way to make this process the most memorable part of the UX. For the returning power users familiar with the inventory, a convenient touch was a tabbed grid presentation of the parts for high-speed scanning and access.
Viewing all parts in the app.
The campaign.
The outreach to survivalists everywhere was a multi platform campaign that began at the epicenter of the pop-culture universe, Comic Con San Diego. The Chop Shop had it’s own booth featuring a full size Veloster ZSM inspired by the vehicle and parts available in the app. Outside the convention center, a team of The Walking Dead cast look-a-likes and walkers were announcing the one way to ensure everyone’s survival was inside at the Chop Shop booth.
For the next couple months a media campaign showcased the visually inspiring, humorous and share-worthy sides of the Chop Shop experience while driving lots of survivors to the Chop Shop landing page.
The print ads each featured one of the three different Hyundai vehicles.
The poster series break down some survival wisdowm and attitude.
Ads running in The Walking Dead comic book.
Once people were flocking to the app and cars were being saved to the Chop Shop gallery, the team had images of users’ builds and data enabling a second campaign revealing the Chop Shop’s social side. Our newsroom team pulled data based on our Chop Shop users that were posting images to find the stories. Information like location, gender, parts used and survivability score were combined to help Hyundai publish stories about Chop Shop such as gender wars, regional battles, most popular parts and even timely pop culture references.
Data-driven Facebook posts used locations, gender and ages of our Chop Shop builders.
The "sharp stick" from the TV spot was the subject of many posts.
Facebook posts showed which builds were best of the best.
People checking out the app for the first couple months were invited to the Chop Shop challenge to build the best ZSM, as determined by your survivability score and rounds of judging by The Walking Dead creators at Skybound Entertainment. The winner of the competition received a trip to New York City to attend Comic Con in October where they would get to witness and sit inside the full-scale, fully equipped fabrication of their winning Zombie Survival Machine on display at the Chop Shop booth.
A split-screen image showing the winning build in the app and the real-life build of that winning vehicle.
Hyundai's Walking Dead Chop Shop saw massive engagement from its Comic Con premier in San Diego through worldwide adoption as a #1 Automotive Lifestyle app. Fans of the Walking Dead and survivors of the zombie apocalypse everywhere were finally able to answer the call to Build, Defend & Survive – each in their own uniquely designed way.
Watch the case video
Ant Man movie partnership.
Hyundai Veloster got a part in the movie. So we gave the movie a part in our Veloster landing page.
All the Veloster trims are shown side by side in the landing page with the moview car at the end.
The movie version of the car was treated like one of the Veloster trims and the animation tells the story.
Having a little fun in the heart of the shopping experience.
The trims & prices section turns out to be the perfect place to catch people and hit them with a little wink.
Other than the car itself, we made the card look and feel like it belonged to a real trim.
Shop the real Velosters. Win movie tickets to watch this one.
You can't get the movie car itself. But some lucky shoppers got their hands on show tickets.
Entering to win movie tickets.
