Hyper-Realistic CGI Ads Are Taking Over Cities

A giant Barbie towers over Dubai’s business district, unfixing her long limbs from a plastic Mattel box as tall as the Burj Khalifa skyscraper. In London, an underground train car adorned with eyelashes rolls into a station where giant mascara wands coat them with a lick of Maybelline’s Lash Sensational. These aren’t real ads—they’re CGI creations, and they’re taking over cities across the world. Or, at the very least, they look like they are. Ian Padgham, a Californian digital artist living in France and founder of production company Origiful, was responsible for the Maybelline work that broke the internet in July. He’s since coined the term “faux out of home” (FOOH) to describe this new medium: a video format that shows a concept that could exist in real life, but instead is enhanced by CGI. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Ian Padgham (@origiful) After majoring in art history at Berkeley, Padgham cut his teeth at X (formerly Twitter) as a video producer. In 2013, he left to start a career as a short-form video creator on the now defunct Vine. Four years ago, he spotted a gap in the market for 3D video artistry, something he thought “was going to be harder for others to emulate” than his previous endeavors. His creations are both hyper-realistic and dreamlike—giant prawn tapas wheeling their way down a Madrid highway; orca whales splashing in the pools outside Paris’ Louvre; the London Eye having, well, eyes. They can be gung ho in the beginning, then they get spooked when the see the video.Ian Padgham, digital artist One of the first big pieces that got him noticed was a video that replaced the tram line in his adoptive hometown Bordeaux with a train car in the shape of a red wine bottle. “After that a bunch of tourists came to Bordeaux looking for the wine train,” he told Adweek. “To me it was fun, surreal, poetic, but it was the first time I realized that when people see something on a video,” they really believe it. Where realism meets magic Brands are buying into it too. In the last 18 months, Padgham has worked on commercial stunts for luxury label Jacquemus (with huge 3D handbags racing through the streets of Paris) and Gucci. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Ian Padgham (@origiful) The Maybelline brief landed on his desk early in 2023 after the marketing team happened upon his Instagram (@Origiful).“We had no idea it would blow up so much,” explained Lauren Chapman, senior brand manager for the makeup giant in a TikTok video explaining the strategy. “It’s hard to do really cool, weird things when you work for a big brand, so we just thought we'd give it a go.” Within a few weeks Padgham presented three different ideas to the brand, then found himself in London to film the real scenes of public transport he’d layer the giant GCI mascara wand on to. Lego DreamZzz Big With 3D Billboards Where Fantasy Enters the Real World “It usually takes a few days to make something but it takes slightly longer for brand projects, subject to approval,” he explained. Two more weeks passed before the video went out into the world via TikTok and Instagram. Within days it clocked 46.4 million views and more than 2 million likes. With more inquiries coming in, he has an agent, but admitted he works on a carte blanche understanding with brands. “They’re not hiring me as a creator or influencer, but as an artist,” he said. Some brands aren’t quite brave enough to take the leap into 3D yet, or fail to understand the concept, he said. “They can be gung ho in the beginning, then they get spooked when the see the video,” he said. "Or they're underwhelmed by a six-second piece of content. I say, 'That's fine, I'll see you next time.'" So nothing is wasted; he simply removes the logo and posts it as he would post any of his other videos, as he did recently with a spot he made for a designer brand featuring a giant pair of high-heeled boots spilling out from Parisian buildings on to the city's busy roads. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Ian Padgham (@origiful) Though ROI is tricky to prove on these sorts of marketing investments, Padgham doesn't think brands are just after virality when they seek him out. "On one hand, I specialize in viral videos, but whenever I start a new relationship with a client I tell them not to seek that out—instead this should be part of a smart content strategy where they're watering their garden with good long- and short-form videos every day," he said. In a world where news outlets and social media platforms are already contending with misinformation, he doesn't want to "dupe" people either. Tinder Reimagines the Summer Fling as Its Marketing to Gen Z Pays Off "I'm never trying to trick anyone. To me, CGI is a sandbox that shows us what could be possible," he continued. In a media landscape where generative AI is making headlines daily for its ability to create increasingly sophisticated deepfakes, he's also worried that the tech to identify and quickly take down fake videos won't catch up in time. "We need a public education campaign around video verification. We need to weaponize communities, because no government or media can control the rate at which those could spread." A fun way of storytelling Maybelline might have gotten people talking online, but other advertisers are seeing real results from FOOH. In December 2022, Adidas struck gold with a billboard seemingly projected on to the Dubai Frame, a nearly 500-foot-tall concrete monument. The in-motion footage, posted after the FIFA Men's World Cup in Qatar, showed different clips of Argentina captain Lionel Messi from 2006, 2010, 2014, 2018 and 2022. The computer-generated stunt was the work of TBWA\Worldwide and garnered 100 million organic views within two days, plateauing at 160 million views and 12.5 million engagements across Instagram, TikTok and Twitter. This summer, UAE-based content and social media agency Eye Studio brought CGI Barbie to the streets in the same market in a viral stunt not because they were asked to as part of Mattel's Barbie Movie marketing blitz, but just because they wanted to showcase their capabilities. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Eye Studio| Creative Content & Social Media Agency👁️ (@eyestudioae) "It was a passion project," admitted co-founder and creative director Juhi Rupani. "It took us 14 days. People were messaging us asking if it was real and where they could go see it, it's led to a lot of other new business inquiries from fashion houses and Bollywood studios." It's also received 50 million views and counting on X. Rupani had already worked on a campaign with Pizza Hut in the UAE to promote its Melts folded pies, showing them swirling around iconic landmarks and buildings. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Eye Studio| Creative Content & Social Media Agency👁️ (@eyestudioae) "This is changing the landscape for us. I don't see the CGI trend going anywhere in the next 12 months," she said. Padgham isn't so certain. "I'm hoping there's another 12 to 18 months' lifespan on this, [but] the writing is on the wall. It's going to be massively overused starting yesterday," he said. With design agencies including Hogarth and INK currently listing vacancies for CGI artists, he thinks the shelf life on what he's doing is bound to expire. However, he is hopeful that such appointments will advance creativity in the short-form video field. "Agencies can hire all the CGI people they want. A year from now, though, the people, the agencies and content creators that will succeed will be those with brilliant ideas and stories to tell," he added. "I hope I can find something new and evolve to stay fresh, and that's what agencies need to do too."

Creative Disruption

Hyper-Realistic CGI Ads Are Taking Over Your City, and Your Timeline

Does 'faux out of home' offer a glimpse of the future?

Rebecca Stewart

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Rebecca Stewart