What could be better for a brand than making a big splash in a new market with a stunning display that went viral and even broke a Guinness World Record? That’s exactly how Genesis, Hyundai’s luxury vehicle division, launched in China.
With the Huangpu River as the nighttime backdrop and the Oriental Pearl Tower in the distance, more than 3,000 drones created various 3D objects and text, ranging from cars and the brand’s logo to the words “Hello, China.”
The logic behind this type of display is that each drone, equipped with an LED light, functions as if it were a pixel. In this way, together with other drones/pixels flying in synchronized and simultaneous formation, they end up forming words or objects.
About these displays—known in English as drone display— the professor of the Bachelor’s Degree in Design, Art, and Technology at Universidad ORT Uruguay, Fritz Márquez.
How do you plan a drone show? What elements and professionals are involved in the process?
These campaigns are the new standard that the public is getting used to. The digital revolution brought with it a key element: collaboration across various disciplines to create far more impactful content, combining (and developing) techniques to achieve that extra something that is invaluable today: virality.
It all starts with an idea, but bringing it to life requires a team that covers every aspect: marketing, design, programming, robotics, engineering, art, artificial intelligence… And that’s just to name a few of the disciplines involved. We define the “what” so that the creative technologists can then decide the “how.”
What are the key elements or concepts that a professional specializing in this type of sampling should keep in mind?
It is essential to have the right collective expertise to develop such a disruptive campaign. It’s not just about having an idea; it also has to be an idea that resonates with the product’s target audience. Some brands would not pursue such an initiative because they likely wouldn’t see a sustained, significant return on investment beyond the sales boost that something so disruptive might generate. There is always an impact; the question is whether it can be sustained over the planned timeframe.
Creating something this impressive requires a significant amount of planning and management—something that engineering and marketing have been doing for a long time, and which are among the key contributions to a multidisciplinary creative process. It is the foundation for successfully coordinating professionals who work at different paces and have very diverse needs. It is also crucial to have a Product Manager, so that the role of the objective within the client’s strategy is not lost sight of; together with the managers, they will be the ones to keep both the artistic and technological progress of the project on track.
"The digital revolution brought with it a key element: collaboration across various disciplines to create far more impactful content, combining (and developing) techniques to achieve that extra something that is invaluable today: virality."
How are the drones flown and synchronized?
Currently, the record for the exhibition featuring the largest number of drones is held by Hyundai's luxury vehicle division: Genesis. It holds the Guinness World Record for the Most Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in the Air at the Same Time, with 3,281 drones. The exhibition took place in March of this year.
The key word is “unmanned.” This is achieved through a complex network of instructions sent to the drones, which essentially function as a giant LED screen. The grid changes its layout to simulate new elements of various sizes and configurations.
The providers for these experiences are companies that offer drone formation services for both indoor and outdoor settings; the drones are remotely controlled and synchronized using software platforms that allow their formation to be configured in a 3D space.
How significant is it for the design and technology community that brands are turning to this type of exhibition to promote themselves?
He is definitely a leader who raises the bar for everyone else. It is becoming increasingly essential to have professionals who, while maintaining expertise in a specific field, are capable of working in multidisciplinary teams that speak the same language. Without staying up to date or with a very traditional approach, they run the risk of remaining confined to a more conservative target audience—one that no longer dictates where trends are headed.
Every day, new decision-makers enter the market—members of a truly digital generation whose capacity for wonder has been saturated, and who spent their childhood and adolescence exposed to the exponential advancement of a technology that inherently seeks to render itself obsolete in the short term.
That’s how important these initiatives are. These examples are outliers among the range of proposals that, if successful, would completely change the game… And we need to be prepared.