The EC3 Carbon Calculator – A product launch that could change the world.
The EC3 Carbon Calculator – A product launch that could change the world.
Did you know 11% of global emissions come from embodied carbon in the materials that go into our buildings? Neither did we, until Autodesk introduced us to their new product. In collaboration with industry partners, Autodesk has developed the ‘Embodied Carbon Calculator’ for the construction industry. Also known as EC3 and offered as a free add-on to Autodesk’s BIM 360 software, it could transform the way architects and construction firms build sustainability into the design process. To raise awareness of EC3 and launch the ground-breaking software, we needed to create a buzz, educate the audience and affirm Autodesk’s positioning as an advocate for sustainability.
We wanted to encourage industry firms to make more ‘climate-smart’ material substitutions and measure their environmental impact. With all of this considered, we created the core message: “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.”
From this we crafted a two-minute video to raise awareness of the problem and explain the software’s capabilities. The asset was to sit at the heart of our campaign, so every detail counted. As it was a consortium of industry leaders who’d created this tool together, we couldn’t make the look and feel lean too heavily towards Autodesk’s branding. To make the colour treatment impartial, we let the sustainability theme take the lead.
We used a ‘paper’ canvas to give the film an overall look that would feel familiar to our target audience. This was overlaid with a subtle shading animation that flickered on and off throughout the video to imitate a recyclable material. To mirror the world’s move from single-use plastic to sustainable product materials, all the design elements were illustrated to look as if they were made out of paper or cardboard materials too. To add impact and reinforce the story, every illustrated scene incorporated relevant graphics which depicted real-world environmental problems or solutions. For the voiceover we had to find the right balance between using specialist terminology and presenting the benefits to a broad general-interest audience (without sacrificing Autodesk’s technical credibility).
Next, we hosted the video at the heart of the campaign page and created teaser ads, designed for social media. Each social ad was a cut-down of the video and covered a different benefit of the EC3 tool. The idea was to intrigue and motivate our audience to click through and find out more.
“ It’s clear, beautiful and engaging. It was incredibly helpful to have a really valuable storytelling asset. Thank you all for everything that you did to hustle on that!! It was a huge help. ”
We’re pleased to say the outcome of this project was more than just a happy client – the video and EC3 tool have been very positively received by the industry too. Fingers crossed, the world will be a little bit greener as a result.
