Price Chopper Returns To Galaxy 6 To Create A Pair of FX-Driven Holiday Spots

Price Chopper recently returned to Galaxy 61 to design and execute a campaign that kicked off the season with a pair of visually enticing spots designed to drive sales and position the supermarket retail chain's brand just right for the holidays.

For the first spot, Price Chopper 4X Gift Card,' Galaxy 61 created a photo-realistic silver gift box, adorned with Christmas ornaments and tied with a bright red ribbon - which unfurls as the box opens. A voiceover announces Price Chopper's holiday offers, which include 4X the Fuel AdvantEdge discount on every gift card customers buy from a select group of participating retailers that included national brands such as GAP, Lowe's, Sears, Kohls, and ToysRUs. Johnson. A series of animated elements - from gift boxes, animated tags and ornaments to 3D logos with ribbons - were created to provide visual interest and a cohesive bridge throughout the spot - which the design boutique turned around in seven days.

The second :30 spot, Holiday Recipes,' introduces an interactive element to the campaign, inviting customers to access a treasure trove of Price Chopper's best recipes for the holidays - some featuring special sale prices for the ingredients - all accessible by simply clicking on the Pinterest logo on Price Chopper's homepage. Three distinct versions of the spot were created - and the package was one again delivered with a week.

Since Price Chopper Director of Creative Services, John Akots, re-connected with the one-stop animation/CGI/editorial and finishing boutique (They partnered in 2007 to create the store's 75th Anniversary campaign), Johnson and his team have honed their skills to meet the challenge of delivering a steady flow of cost-effective and innovate commercials that communicate the retailers ever-changing sales offers to customers with visuals that get their attention and drive them to the store. Seven years, and over 150 commercials later, Johnson credits the collaborative relationship he has built with the retailer with Galaxy 61's ability to evolve the supermarket's brand by providing a one-stop creative resource that consistently delivers fresh, visually engaging spots that push the envelope.

The animated gift box created for the opening of 4X Gift Card' was the inspiration for the 2nd spot's iconic recipe box, which then highlights our ever-growing focus on digital/social marketing by featuring holiday Pinterest recipes, says Akots. The commercial also fits right into the flexible, modular, fast and affordable approach that creative consultant partners Roman Mayer and Murray Skurnik, Doug Johnson and I have developed over the years.

While most of Price Chopper's spots were designed to drive customers to stores - the addition of the Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook logos at the end of each recipe spot are also a nod to its increasing presence in the digital/social realm.

Crafting comedic, live-action mood driven spot content for a retailer is standard fare, says Johnson. The challenge with Price Chopper lies in designing and executing the segments of the spots that advertise the weekly sales and special offers, while maintaining agency-level quality that draws in viewers and drives them to the store. Price Chopper (supermarket) spots are unlike any other food retailers commercials. First, you have to understand the language and all the details that need to be communicated. Only then can you deliver on the tight deadlines and the customized high quality work required for their promotions.

Galaxy 61 is structured to be a nimble creative resource, with the level of expertise needed to work with modest budgets and still delivers complex, compelling FX-driven spots and logos that consistently exceed our clients' expectations, says Johnson.

It's amazing what you can accomplish once you get in that groove, build that relationship shorthand' with talented, experienced outside partners and a strong internal staff. It's a pretty powerful team. says Akots.

Working with a client on an ongoing basis also allows us to think ahead, and design assets so that they are re-usable, which is key for a retailer like Price Chopper, says Johnson. I always make a point to wrangle something creatively satisfying out of every project, no matter how simple it is - and bring the full scope of my experience as an animator, designed, and FX artist to each spot.

John Akots brings decades of experience working in the supermarket arena, and his skill as a creative director has been instrumental to the success of the Price Chopper campaign over the last six-years. He helms each spot, collaborating closely with Doug Johnson, as well as Roman Mayer and Murray Skurnik, who also bring extensive supermarket experience to the table from storyboards, to scripts, to creative direction.

As Akots and Johnson's collaborative relationship grew so did the level of trust, and a broader range of Galaxy 61's capabilities were tapped, including editing and sound.

The original board for the 4X Gift Card' spot was a bit frenetic, so we did a lot of adjusting during the editorial process. The retail partners provided the artwork for the gift cards, and were very specific about how the cards were to be presented, says Johnson. Each card had to be the exact same size, and appear for precisely the same amount of time.

The key to meeting the technical challenges of these spots was to keep things simple and render the elements quickly and efficiently. Johnson deviated from his usual practice of rendering out every conceivable layer of information in 3D (reflections, refractions, shadows, masks, etc.) and then creating the final look by compositing them together in After Effects. While that approach affords more flexibility at the last minute it results in much longer rende

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