ADS – Investor Video Series

How we helped ADS tell their big story, venturing across several states to shoot on location and produce this original investor video series.

The Backstory (Background)

ADS had a big story to tell and needed a production team to make it happen. With their annual Wall Street Investor Day event looming just weeks away, the ADS marketing team needed to create two new videos in time for the big show.

ADS is a massive organization with manufacturing, logistics, and recycling operations across North America. In simple terms, ADS recycles consumer plastics and converts that material into thousands of miles of plastic pipe and other water management products that makeup the infrastructure underneath the places we all live, work, and play.

Opportunity / Challenge

From a messaging standpoint, our objective was to tell the bigger story of ADS’ positive impacts on the environment as they pursue their mission to manage our most important shared natural resource: water.

Working in close coordination with the ADS marketing team, we developed two video concepts:

A sizzle reel showcasing ADS’ broad investment footprint of automated manufacturing, logistics, and recycling operations
A case-study blending live-action video with 3D animation sequences to reveal how ADS products are constantly at work (literally beneath our feet) in every aspect of our daily lives

One of our biggest challenges was the calendar: We needed to capture new footage from at least three different facilities in three different states and then complete design, animation, and post production work––all within the span of six weeks.

Solution / Execution

Advance location scouting is imperative to making any shooting day productive. Virtual scouts of each location via remote meetings allowed our team to “walk through” each facility and get familiar with the various layouts and shooting opportunities.

Our compact travel crew included a director, AD, DP, second camera operator, drone camera operator, and a swing grip. Multi-cam location shoots were executed at ADS manufacturing and recycling operations in Kentucky, Missouri, and Pennsylvania. Drone and GoPro (POV) video allowed us to reveal technical details and create visual connections between different facilities.

Once in post production, adaptive workflows allowed us to accommodate ongoing stakeholder requests as we moved from rough cuts to the final edits.

In order to illustrate the story of all the activity happening underground, 3D animation factored heavily into the Case Study video. Our designers worked in concert with the product specialists at ADS to accurately recreate the network of products and flows that…

Results / Take Away

Investor day event was a smashing success. Full-length videos cut down for social media content; Shortly thereafter, ADS was named North America’s largest plastics recycling company; New asset library for ongoing creative allowed us to help announce that news with a fresh Earth Day recycling video.