Freaner Creative & Design's campaign resounded at the 2024 Ad Awards, clinching a Gold Award for "Fujitsu Ten - Eclipse Sound Systems: Have You Ever Heard an Eclipse?". Tasked with amplifying Fujitsu Ten's luxury mobile entertainment systems in the US market, Freaner crafted visually and sonically captivating ads. The tagline "Have You Ever Heard an Eclipse?" harmoniously links the awe of celestial phenomena with cutting-edge audio technology, ensuring that the Eclipse brand strikes a chord with consumers and media influencers. This campaign reverberated through trade shows and digital platforms, creating an echo of enthusiasm that positioned Eclipse as a premier audio experience, proving that their creative hit all the right notes.

By: Ariel Freaner, Founder, Freaner Creative & Design

Have you ever heard of an Eclipse? We did!

Freaner Creative & Design was hired by the Japanese company Fujitsu Ten to provide complete creative and design services for Eclipse, their new luxury, state-of-the-art mobile entertainment system division for automobiles and other vehicles. Our San Diego-based firm, which has more than 35 years of expertise in innovative, award-winning design, was tasked with developing everything the Eclipse brand would need to be introduced successfully to United States consumers and all-important media influencers, starting in California and then expanding nationally. 

Since the brand was unknown to the U.S. and its pricing matched its sophisticated offering, we developed a campaign with creative concepts attuned to making this luxury product irresistible to its niche market. 

Our general concept resulted from intense research and brainstorming: “Have you ever heard an eclipse?” We wanted to connect the awe and rarity of eclipses—these impressive natural phenomena that occur in distant space but that on Earth we don’t hear—with the wonder and impressiveness of Fujitsu Ten’s technology, which is all about sound. Our goal was to make people crave the hands-on listening experience of an Eclipse mobile entertainment system with its state-of-the-art high-tech features. We provided that experience and campaign media support as our next step.  

The campaign continued with clever follow-up phrases related to sound, listening, and the extraordinary quality of the Eclipse experience—such as, “When your thoughts become one with your car,” “Experience the Sound of Power,” and, of course, “Have you ever heard an Eclipse?”

With Freaner Creative’s assistance, Fujitsu Ten launched Eclipse Mobile Entertainment at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show, or CES, with a press conference and product launch event. The Eclipse full product line was displayed in a unique exhibit along with a gallery of advertising materials designed by Freaner Creative. 

But that wasn’t it. We created and developed a special add-on: an anaglyphic/stereoscopic 3D campaign with red and blue anaglyphic/stereoscopic glasses for the CES media and booth visitors. The 3D campaign allowed the media to inspect and thoroughly enjoy the product in enhanced detail. It also sparked user curiosity to visit the website and multimedia applications in 3D.

The Eclipse campaign continued in different media formats for the following six months, including trade shows, car events, and sound and entertainment mobile enthusiasts associations. We hit traditional media, such as specialized magazines, newspapers, and localized outdoor campaigns. We also took the campaign to digital applications on social media, online banners, websites, mobile applications, and OEM systems. The response from the press, sound enthusiasts, and the public was impressive. 

Indeed, Eclipse by Fujitsu Ten received an incredible welcome and an unexpected reception at the CES Show. Attendees admired the concept and remarked on how different the campaign was from other mobile entertainment campaigns. They requested 3D glasses from every side of the aisle until we ran out.

Within a few months, we went from promoting an unknown product to gaining an exemplary brand position. Recognition and sales steadily grew. Not only was our client delighted with our campaign and its results, but we also received a Graphis gold award.

As this project’s creative and art director, I had a great experience with the team effort, creative process, and collaboration with a new client who was not just new to California but to the U.S. We initially were concerned that communication would be a challenge. However, that concern was misplaced. Yes, we knew we had to overcome language barriers, understand different project approaches, and meet the challenge of developing successful creative concepts—not to mention adjusting our alarms to Japan time. But we also had some delightful cultural traditions to take on, such as learning how to eat sushi properly and getting used to gracefully bowing to our Japanese clients, among other fun cultural and international rituals. In short, it was a great collaboration and experience.

It’s not exactly news that we live in a global business environment, but as Americans, we sometimes forget that we are partners with our colleagues and clients worldwide. I believe that to be successful, it is essential to welcome, understand, and collaborate with all cultures. I have first-hand experience with intercultural relations since I was born and raised in Mexico and am now a U.S. citizen. We encourage all our colleagues and professionals in the creative industry to be humble and start doing things that spark a successful partnership: learn to speak other languages, understand and respect different beliefs, collaborate instead of impose, share, and coexist inside and outside the work area.

In this new world without frontiers, it is imperative to understand our clients better, and why not turn them into friends? It makes life—and business—richer. At Freaner, that’s just what we do. We listen to our client’s needs and seek to understand their goals. It’s precisely what we did for Eclipse. So, yes, we can confidently say we heard an Eclipse.

Ariel Freaner is the principal and founder of Freaner Creative & Design, with more than 35 years of experience in creative development, illustration, and design. His award-winning, San Diego-based full-service firm offers creative, digital, and graphic design services to clients in North America, Latin America, and abroad. It specializes in web and app design, editorial and print design, brand development, online marketing, and 3-D development. Freaner Creative recently received several Graphis Awards, including platinum, gold, and silver, as well as two Emmy awards and four Emmy nominations.

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