ADVERTISEMENT - CASE STUDY
FITBIT VERSA
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Fitbit needed a coordinated global launch campaign for the Versa smartwatch.
The goal was to position it as a mass-appeal device and reach consumers across multiple international markets simultaneously.
CLIENT
FitBit
INDUSTRY
Advertising
SECTOR
Consumer Electronics/Fitness
YEAR
2018
PRODUCTION COMPANY
01 - THE BRIEF
What the client needed
The Challenge
Fitbit needed to launch the Versa smartwatch to a global audience simultaneously, across multiple regions, languages and broadcast formats.
The challenge was to take a single campaign and make it feel locally relevant in every market, without losing visual consistency or the integrity of the product. The Versa was Fitbit’s first mass-appeal smartwatch, and the advertising had to work hard to position it as a serious consumer device in a category dominated by Apple.
Every regional version required the watch’s on-screen interface to be composited onto 3D renders of the product in the correct language, meaning the work demanded both technical precision and a deep understanding of how the brand needed to show up across different cultural markets.
The Objective
The objective was to deliver broadcast and cinema-ready assets for every global market, with motion graphics and screen composites that felt native to the product rather than translated afterthoughts.
Each version needed the watch’s interface to sit convincingly within photorealistic 3D renders of the Versa, with localised language content that held up at the quality level a global consumer electronics campaign demands.
The campaign needed to establish the Versa as a credible smartwatch across multiple continents simultaneously, supporting a product that would go on to outsell Samsung, Garmin and Fossil smartwatches combined in North America within its first full sales quarter.
02 - THE APPROACH
How we tackled it
Working within After Effects, the process centred on compositing localised screen content directly onto 3D renders of the Versa, with each language version requiring individual attention to ensure the watch interface sat convincingly within the geometry of the product at every angle.
Motion graphics were built to integrate with the renders rather than sit on top of them by using motion tracking within the frame matching the lighting, depth and perspective of each shot so the final composite felt like a single unified piece of work. Alongside the screen compositing, TV and cinema edits were produced to broadcast specification for each territory, meaning every deliverable had to meet the technical and creative requirements of its specific market.
The priority throughout was coherence; regardless of language or format, every version of the campaign needed to feel like it came from the same place, reflecting the precision and quality that a global consumer electronics brand demands of its advertising.
03 - THE PROCESS
01
Reviewing the master campaign assets and mapping the full scope of regional requirements, identifying the language, format and broadcast specifications each market needed to meet.
02
Establishing a compositing and versioning approach that would allow screen content and motion graphics to be localised efficiently across every market without compromising visual consistency or production quality.
03
Building and compositing localised screen interfaces onto 3D renders of the Versa frame by frame, while simultaneously producing motion graphics and editing TV and cinema deliverables to specification for each territory.
04
Refining every regional version to broadcast standard, checking composite accuracy, language correctness and visual consistency across all formats to ensure every market received a finished asset that held up to the quality of a global advertising campaign.
04 - THE RESULTS
THE OUTCOMES
463K views
NO.1
30m
The Fitbit Versa global campaign delivered results that underlined the commercial weight of the project. Within its first full sales quarter, the Versa outsold Samsung, Garmin and Fossil smartwatches combined in North America, becoming Fitbit’s fastest-selling product ever.
The campaign hero film accumulated 463,000 views on YouTube, with localised broadcast and cinema assets running across multiple regions simultaneously. Within fourteen months of launch, Fitbit moved from zero share of the smartwatch category to the number two position in the US, and the company was acquired by Google for $2.1 billion in 2020.
These results were driven by a product and a campaign operating at the highest level of global consumer electronics advertising. As the person responsible for delivering all graphics output within a small, focused team at ENVY Advertising, the localised screen composites, motion graphics and broadcast edits produced were a direct part of the machinery that took this campaign to market. No single person delivers a global campaign alone, but the precision and consistency of the graphics work across every regional version was a core component of what made the campaign function at the scale it did.
05 - TESTIMONIAL
Jamie’s ability and hard work on the FitBit campaign helped us to secure more business and he ended up staying with us for three months. Jamie was a pleasure to work with and I would definitely recommend him.
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