Using a 3D billboard for a product launch: the playbook
A launch needs a moment people remember and share. How to plan a 3D billboard around a launch date, what to show, and how to make the screen the start of the story rather than the end.
Why launches and 3D billboards fit
A launch has a date, a product and a story to tell in seconds. A 3D billboard has a screen, a crowd and a moment. Put them together and the product appears, larger than life, in a place people already are, and the people film it. That is a launch asset you cannot buy any other way.
Start six weeks out
The 3D film takes 3 to 4 weeks from the approved brief. Add the time to collect the screen specs and product files, and you are at five to six weeks before the screen goes live. Launches that call us two weeks out can still get a single corner screen, but not a network. The timeline article has the week-by-week.
Show the product doing the thing
The best launch moments show what the product does, not what it looks like. Miele was launching an oven that cleans itself. We did not show an oven. We built a facade that behaved like one: the door opens on a dirty oven, the cycle runs, the building ends clean. People understood the product in seconds on screens they walked past. The full case study shows how it was decided and what the client said.
Pick one hero screen, then the network
One screen with the strongest illusion and the best viewpoint is where the reaction videos come from. The network of flat screens carries the same idea across the city or the country so the launch reads the same everywhere. One production, one idea, every screen in the plan.
Plan the second life before the first
The screen is the start. Plan what happens with the reaction videos, the brand’s own cut of the film, and the FOOH version placed in a real street for social. All of it is produced from the same 3D assets, so it is decided at the storyboard, not after the launch.
Languages and markets
A launch across several countries is one concept and one version per screen and language. Text is rebuilt in each language rather than translated on top. Decide the markets before production starts; adding one after the render costs a week.
The launch week
The film goes live on the launch date. The brand posts its own cut the same day. The FOOH film follows within the week, when the reaction videos are already circulating. That sequence keeps the product in the feed for longer than any single post.
What to send us
The launch date, the product files, the screens you have booked or want to book, and the markets. We come back with a free static concept within 72 hours, then a 15-minute call to lock the plan.