Green Digital

Client: Smart Car/Sticky Pictures
Creative Firm: Sticky Pictures - Brooklyn, NY,USA
Creative Team: Michael Darmanin - Director; Nol Kittiampon - Lead Animator; Matt Choi - Designer

The Smart Car is just so... cute. But can it sell? Sticky Pictures pitched an inventive commercial to Smart Car USA based on the electric vehicle's playful aesthetic. "The experience of car ownership goes beyond sitting behind a steering wheel," the Brooklyn firm says. "We wished to express the concept of the environment outside of traditional definitions by opening peoples' eyes and minds to the world outside of the car." Inspired by the tagline, "Open Your Mind," and interpreted as a wakeup call to the world outside of our cars-a place where one might find trees, happiness or even true love.

The commercial's animation conjures a trippy alternate world that may exist as far away as an idealized European countryside or as close as one's own head. "We wanted to express the narrative in the form of a question, 'What's on the mind of a Smart Car driver?'" the team says. To convey the consciousness of an owner of an environmentally friendly car, Sticky Pictures explored the idea of a tree being literally in the driver's mind, with the rest of the story unfolding within that framework. The viewer seamlessly travels inside the driver's mind "to a new state of reality, using a tree... doubling as his 'brain'" and then growing to encompass other tree motifs.