Overview

At Huge, Stellantis is a valued client for whom we contribute significantly to their growth through our expertise in display and social advertisement campaigns. Our dedicated team comprises over 80 professionals spanning various domains, including analytics, project management, development, quality assurance, and visual design.

Here is a compilation showcasing some of the remarkable work we've executed for this esteemed client.

Team

Camilo Montoya, Visual Designer.
Daniel Ochoa, Associate Creative Director.
Stellantis Team, 80+ members.

Overview

Ad production begins with the creative router, housing meticulously crafted mockups by our design team, serving as visual blueprints. Once these mockups receive approval, we move on to developing ad units. Our design team uploads necessary assets like logos and images onto the DoubleClick platform, specially designed for internet ads. Many crucial assets are in place during brand creation, so production mainly involves adding elements such as event logos, award badges, car renders, or background images.

A crucial part of this process involves fine-tuning assets to meet required specifications, adjusting the weight of certain elements or refining details in car imagery. Background images undergo retouching to seamlessly fit various ad sizes.

As production wraps up and our development team generates all production units, we conduct thorough reviews with both our team and the Quality Assurance (QA) team using preview links. Our goal during this review is to ensure each unit aligns with the original creative router, addressing any discrepancies or issues that may be considered as bugs.

Impact

On a daily basis, our seemingly routine tasks involve employing various creative tools, such as design systems, optimization, accessibility, and image post-production. These tasks are essential for gaining a deeper understanding of our system and identifying opportunities for improvement.

For our clients, these tasks are of utmost importance. They help maintain strong client relationships by delivering the necessary display ads with a modern marketing strategy tailored to the marketing funnel and supported by an analytics system for informed future decisions.

Overview

In 2021, we embarked on an innovative journey guided by a fresh strategic plan. This led us to introduce a cutting-edge display ad template known as "Sales Events." Our objective was clear: to captivate our clients with enticing, time-limited offers and motivate them to explore our latest Stellantis brand vehicles.

I had the privilege of being one of the designers actively engaged in the rollout of this new template, spanning all six Stellantis brands of that era. I played a pivotal role in the process, offering animated prototypes to facilitate comprehension for our development team. Additionally, I crafted a comprehensive suite of template variations to address various scenarios, ensuring the highest quality standards for our quality assurance team.

Impact

The project enjoyed a resounding success, paving the way for an ongoing collaboration with our client to ensure a consistent stream of sales events across nearly all Stellantis brands. Ultimately, the strategy of incorporating seasonal sales events proved to be a winning formula and seamlessly became an integral part of our standard banner offerings.

Overview

Jeep's history boasts numerous vehicles, but the Grand Wagoneer stands out as an icon. In late 2020, it told the world that it will do a comeback in 2021 as the premium American family SUV. For this launch our client sought something beyond static images or standard animations for their ads to truly emphasize the vehicle's significance.

This led us to experiment with 3D display tools, resulting in a captivating 3D render of the Grand Wagoneer. This dynamic animation, featuring camera movements, showcases the SUV's key features, delivering a premium and modern visual experience.

Impact

The client expressed genuine satisfaction with our innovative approach, particularly our use of the 3D render in various applications. This included its integration into interactive social media ads for Facebook Experiences and its incorporation into internal imagery showcasing the vehicle's features.

Within the Stellantis account, our design team's dedication to exploring novel avenues to delight the client with premium units was met with enthusiasm and appreciation from the entire team.

Overview

During vehicle models launch or special events, the client request animations for their social platforms or the mass market. We deliver creative pieces that have a strong brand value and an engaging animation.

These pieces have generated awareness for the brand to increase their website traffic up to 30% due to the feature or model that is launching. And even get the attention of the market competitors to congratulate the brands for their outstanding work in the ad world.

Overview

Each year, Stellantis introduces new vehicle models across its various brands as part of a strategic effort to showcase technological advancements and maintain competitiveness in the automotive market. In line with this initiative, we regularly refresh the appearance of our display ad units every 2-3 years. These updates aim to enhance engagement through the use of animations, vibrant colors, and interactive elements.

The development of our new display ad unit templates typically spans approximately three months to cater to all seven brands under our management. This comprehensive process encompasses a range of activities, including strategic alignment, in-depth research, concept development, wireframing, the creation of high-quality design proposals, prototyping, design system establishment, development, and ongoing maintenance.

The design system serves as a foundational resource for Stellantis' creative team, enabling them to efficiently craft new mockups for each brand. It must be meticulously crafted to ensure consistency across the brands and precision in defining the behavior of every element. This consistency is essential for the units to emulate real-world interactions convincingly.

In my role, I have been actively engaged with MYR throughout 2022 and 2023. As the lead designer, I have overseen projects from inception to completion. This includes close collaboration with the U.S. Stellantis team, facilitating approval processes, and actively seeking feedback from clients.

Objective

Lead the design process of MYR ensuring design consistency across Stellantis brands and collaborating with clients and the U.S. Stellantis team to deliver high-quality interactive units aligned with strategic goals.

Impact

Over the course of both years, the project has seen successful deployment with notably fewer reported issues compared to previous MYRs. Moreover, it has cultivated a culture of design system exploration within the creative team, especially among team members who previously had limited experience in planning and developing such systems.

A pivotal highlight of these projects was spearheading the migration from Sketch to Figma within the Stellantis creative team, a collaborative effort led by myself and Daniel Ochoa. This transition was undertaken to enhance collaboration and streamline the maintenance of our design system, marking a significant step forward in our design workflow.

Overview

Throughout 2023, I spearheaded several enhancements for the MYR project, incorporating the latest advancements in Figma as a design tool and harnessing emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence. My primary goal was to streamline and automate monotonous tasks within MYR, allowing designers to redirect their focus toward more creative endeavors instead of repetitive processes.

Mockup generation

To approve display ad unit development, we create decks containing mockups. Each deck features around 3-5 messages, 2 frames, and alternative options per template (we have 4 templates), resulting in approximately 36 mockups to produce. This process typically takes 3 days, but certain steps are repetitive, like copying text from a copydoc to the mockups or setting up base templates in Figma.

To streamline this, we revamped the initial step using the Figma plugin "Google Sheets Sync." We transitioned from a Word copydoc to a spreadsheet, designed a Figma file template with base mockups, and leveraged the plugin to generate mockups based on spreadsheet content. This change reduced initial file setup time from half a day to just 2 minutes.

Auto style texts

After completing the design file, we conduct a review of each text element to ensure they fit within the safe zones of the mockup and accurately represent the intended style for the developed unit.

This review step typically consumes about half a day, contingent on the quantity of mockups, as it involves testing various styles to ensure each element fits precisely within the safe zone. Precision is crucial to avoid issues when the QA team compares the developed unit to the mockup.

To enhance this process, we devised a custom private Figma plugin called "Auto Styles." This plugin identifies all necessary text elements within the mockups on the current page or selected ones. It then calculates the precise styles based on a predetermined set of maximum values for each brand, reducing the time required from half a day to just 1 minute, even with an average number of messages.

AI retouching

We typically work with display units in 5 sizes: 160x600, 300x250, 300x600, 728x90, and 970x250. For production, we require assets for each size, featuring the vehicle in specific positions. To achieve this, we create a template file with a cross shape, enabling us to use a single asset for all sizes. However, we often need to manually expand the image by retouching it to remove empty spaces or adding other images that are cohesive with the image background. This becomes especially challenging and time-consuming with city backgrounds or intricate background details.

In mid-2023, as AI technology advanced, we experimented with DALL·E 2 features to expand images. To ensure easy approval from the leadership team and the client, we opted to leverage Photoshop Beta AI capabilities. This decision significantly reduced retouching time from 8 hours to approximately 15-20 minutes, producing precise results. Additionally, it served as an educational tool for the creative team, demonstrating how AI can enhance creativity and offer various retouching possibilities.

Learnings

As one of my initial freelance projects of substantial scale, this experience has proven invaluable in gaining insight into the client's perspective. It has afforded me the opportunity to collaboratively shape a product according to their vision, ultimately ensuring their satisfaction. Moreover, the potency of utilizing established design systems as a foundation for customization has become evident. This approach not only streamlines the process but also grants ample room for creative input on how to seamlessly integrate the brand identity, resulting in a truly unique and customized brand experience.