Institution of Civil Engineers: From source to tap

Smyle use their superpowers to help Institution of Civil Engineers up their content game.

The Challange

Create a global campaign to help the Institution of Civil Engineers celebrate 200 years of achievement and engage a younger audience in their mission.

The Approach

Working alongside the client team, we landed upon the concept of transforming historical and modern day civil engineering greats into ‘superhero’ alter egos! The central goal was to inspire a new, younger generation of civil engineers, telling them amazing stories of the unsung heroes of our civilisation. Our scope included character and brand identity development, original artwork creation, storyboarding, and full creation of a series of animated and live action films.

Following the success of an initial project, we were asked to continue our work with a new campaign. Its theme; ‘From Source to Tap’, heroes one of the core United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs) to provide clean water and sanitation for all, and is of critical importance to our modern world.

Our approach was to build upon the foundation of our previous work, starring a team of new global heroes. We created a family of eye-catching & dramatic media content, which clearly outlines worldwide issues surrounding water and educates towards a more responsible attitude. A key component to effectively communicating this to a modern audience, was the creation of a super villain character…the dreaded Fatberg!

A series of films were produced to bring the campaign to life. From an explainer film clearly summarising the theme of the campaign for a nonprofessional global audience… all the way to a thrilling high-end character animation film, driving home key messages through a dramatic narrative, involving all our civil engineering superheroes as they battle the Fatberg monster!

The Result

Our campaign was developed into a wider campaign incorporating merch, billboards and news stories across the globe including a headline BBC News story.

The Invisible Superheroes campaign was an unprecedented success for the Institution of Civil Engineers. Through it, we were able to help them add a contemporary flair to their celebration of 200 years of achievement, bringing their invaluable message home to a diverse and youthful global audience.

See also

Country House

The Lockhouse,
71 Mead Lane,
Hertford, SG13 7AX

Town House

Albert House,
256-260 Old St,
London, EC1V 9DD

Manchester

Studio 105, SeeSaw,
86 Princess Street,
Manchester, M1 6NG

Amsterdam

Suikersilo-Oost 22,
1165 MS Halfweg,
Netherlands