Character Development
When we were approached by Penny AT with an ambitious brief - creating the new "face" for their Austrian supermarket chain - we embraced this challenge. The result was Wowie, a happy yellow character that would become the new emotional connection between customers and the Penny AT brand across television, social media, print, and digital out-of-home advertising.
Social Media & DOOH: Wowie in Motion
Once the design was finalized, our animators brought Wowie to life. Wowie quickly learned to dance and pose - and our personal favorite became his animated eating sequence!
Print and Digital: Wowie's Emotions
“Pop off the page and jump off the screen”. As a multichannel native, he was built to communicate emotions in the blink of an eye. While being recognizable as the round Penny dot, his ability to make people smile was his main job.
Character Development
The creative brief was elegantly straightforward: develop a character that would be "instantly recognizable but as simple as possible" while maintaining "a full range of emotions."
This genesis of Wowie began with a fundamental question: how do you create maximum impact with minimal complexity?
No facial wrinkles, cheeks, or elements that would alter the essential spherical form. Every design decision supported the character's versatility across media formats - from close-up television work to small-scale logo integration on print materials.
VFX: Wowie's Grand Performance
The crown jewel of the campaign was a series of three commercials where Wowie was the hero character.
His big entrance - popping out of the avocados - was chosen to be his first hero moment, and with careful planning, he could even enjoyed his banana at the same time.
A fun jump-and-run sequence was another action set piece. Due to time constraints on-set, we also had to do some invisible VFX work, exchanging and enhancing a couple of the products and cleanup the checkout conveyor belt.
Credits
Client: Penny.at
Agency: &US
Postproduction: PPM Next
Director: Lars Timmermann
Producer: Julian Fischer
VFX Supervisor: Achim August Tietz
Animation Director: Leonhard Akinbiyi
Modeling: Jens Kindler
Rigging: Sebastian Pfeifer
Animation: Thabo Mlangeni, Sang-Youen "Shuga" Cho, Susana Barata, Sebastião Lopes
Compositing: Noah Hähnel