Meet the client
DS Smith is a leading provider of sustainable packaging solutions, paper products and recycling services worldwide. Over the past 80 years, their organisation has grown dramatically, as have their services and areas of expertise. They are recognised around the world for their innovation, which helps them save 160 million trees every year.
The brief
With companies racing to reach net zero, DS Smith wanted to share their unique circular economy with the world and explain how they are able to help keep more trees in the ground. All the while producing the highest quality packaging around the world.
Discovery
We have years of experience creating engaging and informative explainer videos, we know our way around a brand discovery. We sat down with the experts at DS Smith to discover the why behind what they do, the unique innovation behind their circular economy, the effects it can have on the environment and importantly, the purpose behind their desires to share it with the world.
Scripting
With all the information gathered from the discovery session, our wordsmiths set about crafting the narrative for this educational content. DS Smith, naturally, lives and breathes this subject and so understanding it is second nature. Our challenge is to explain their circular economy in a way that everyone can understand. Making complex subjects digestible, entertaining and thought-provoking is what we do best.
One way we approached this, is to show a comparison between a linear and circular economy, to show the differences and explain, in a simple way, the benefits and why we should all be aware of the dangers of ignoring what we’re doing to the planet.
Concept art
DS Smith already had an established brand style and we took a deep dive into their brand guidelines before developing initial concept art to present to the team. All the illustrations and icons needed to fit and be consistent with their other marketing materials and so this was a crucial stage to explore approaches, before embarking on the storyboard.
Storyboarding
We wanted to show DS Smith customers and the rest of the world the life of a DS Smith Box so that they could fully understand what a circular economy, versus a linear economy actually looks like.
We walked the audience through the process of creating a typical product from DS Smith, a cardboard box, and the life, experiences and uses before the ever-important recycling message. Using the developed script and the concept art, we mapped out the narrative from beginning to end, with notes on how the animation will progress as well as how transitions will be implemented for a smooth and informative story.
Production
It is not until the animating starts that you get to see how much of a difference these unique elements make. We managed to keep an information-heavy subject easy to engage with by using simplified language and brilliant animation that helps to tell the story of DS Smith’s circular economy in an unexpected way.
