The Campaign

Google Play Music needed to stand out in Australia’s crowded streaming landscape, where there’s little differentiating platforms in the eyes of users. To set them apart, increase brand awareness and position the platform as an innovator, our idea was to create exclusive content that fans would love: an immersive interactive music video. We collaborated with local hip-hop legends Hilltop Hoods. Their track, Through The Dark, is a deeply personal song written by band member Dan Smith (MC Pressure) about his son Liam’s battle with leukemia. Raw and real, the song connected deeply with audiences. Our idea was to bring that to life, translating conflicting emotions into something conveying the sense of a father’s world turned upside down. Users move through simultaneous 3D worlds, The Dark and The Light, by rotating their mobile device and navigating a journey through fear towards hope.

Creative Execution

When a loved one is fighting for their life, your world is turned upside down, your emotions alternating between fear and hope. It’s this duality that we aimed to capture. Our inspiration was a photo by Marcin Ryczek: a man in black on a white, snowy riverbank feeding white swans on an ink-black river. A stunning contrast between two opposing worlds. We meticulously mapped two complete worlds existing in parallel, The Dark and The Light, to represent the highs and lows of caring for someone who’s battling cancer. The black and white identity was created using light poly animation, which we translated from Maya into WebGL for the mobile browser. The result is a personal story transformed into a powerful visual experience: a seamlessly flowing interactive film where users navigate their own path from fear to hope.