National Geographic finding light in history’s darkest hours
Key Art | Advertising | Digital
We created the key art, character posters, out of home video campaign, and digital paid media campaign for the National Geographic series A Small Light, inspired by the true, heroic story of Miep Gies.
CHALLENGE
A Small Light follows Miep Gies, the woman who helped hide Anne Frank’s family during WWII—and preserved her diary in the process. Following Miep’s relatively unknown story was a fresh way of telling the Franks’ story. Our key art needed to keep the focus on Miep while honoring the experience of Anne, Otto, and other characters.
INSIGHT
Just as the creators of A Small Light do in their series, we knew that it was important to strike a balance of tragedy and resilience, fear and courage, despair and hope. We sought to capture the nuance and depth of each character with simplicity and impact across our key art and video campaigns.
APPROACH
We created a series of character posters and video assets that spotlighted each of the incredible actors featured on the series, as well as their characters’ names. This allowed us to highlight the series’ talent and historical context while keeping the focus on the brightness and humanity of each character—to, as the series says, “Find light moments in times of darkness”.
EXECUTION We developed creative for a sweeping out-of-home campaign for A Small Light, which featured a variety of placements all across the country. One of the most impactful OOH placements was the takeover of the Oculus Center and Fulton Street subway station—also known as the World Trade Center Transit Hub—in NYC. We designed artwork that appeared all around the WTC Transit Hub, which serves well over 250,000 commuters every day.
We brought A Small Light to life through an animated OOH placement on the ABC Supersign in Times Square. New Yorkers and tourists alike were introduced to the characters and stories that make up A Small Light with this placement, which incorporated the series key art and trailer.
Beyond the large-scale ads in WTC Transit Hub and Times Square, the placements for this campaign appeared in bus shelters and billboards all around the country, catching potential audience members at key points along their daily commutes. In addition to OOH placements, the campaign also incorporated print ads, which were featured in the New York Times and LA Times, among others. It was important for us to develop this campaign with flexibility in mind, creating artwork that would be just as striking in a newspaper spread as it was on a billboard.
The digital campaign for A Small Light afforded us creative opportunities to feature the animated key art and series trailer beyond print and OOH. The campaign included a takeover of the IMDB home page, as well as placements on Vizio and Amazon connected TVs. These digital ads raised awareness and drove traffic to the show, contextualizing it as a must-watch addition to the streaming world.
SJI Associates brought this campaign to life with bold, powerful creative that extended across a number of high-profile placements and platforms. The visuals were true to the era but modern in their execution with an arresting tone.
Brian Everett Vice President Design, National Geographic & Disney Branded Television
