PRESS RELEASE
Creating an Online Monument to Sound - Sennheiser’s Reshaping Excellence
campaign creates a WebGL-powered, immersive audio-visual experience to
tease the launch of a mystery milestone product
Old Lyme, Conn., October 29, 2015 – This November Sennheiser will be
launching its “next big thing”: an exclusive audiophile product that will be a
new milestone in the history of high-end audio. To build anticipation for the
release, Sennheiser and creative agency Philipp und Keuntje have launched a
unique WebGL-powered website as a focal point of the campaign, which will
deliver an immersive experience that involves fans in the process of unveiling
Sennheiser’s mystery milestone product. The website has already received
leading industry accolades including “Site of the Day” (SOTD) and “Site of
the Month” (SOTM) from the “Favorite Website Awards” and an Awwwards "
“Site of the Month” Ribbon.
Visitors
to
swept
on
clouds
into
the
a
site
are
cinematic
a
vividly
immediately
flight
through
realized
fantasy
landscape. Audio is at the heart of the
experience,
soundscapes blending realistic wind
with
complex
shifting
noises with mysterious ambient music.
Visitors are then invited to help create the “new monument to sound” –
building a titanic sculpture of the new product by making their own unique
sound sculpture that will form a stone in the emerging monument. Gameplay
elements involve striking at rocks to shape their sculpture with each blow
making a different sound, thereby forming a completely individual pattern of
sounds. Each visitor is invited to share their own sound sculpture on Facebook
encouraging others to join in the process of the reveal.
PRESS RELEASE
“Reshaping
Excellence
is
Sennheiser’s
biggest ever campaign and will launch
an innovative flagship product,” said Uwe
Greunke,
Director
Global
Marketing
at
Sennheiser. “This product exists in a
dimension entirely of its own and we
wanted to create a website that reflects this otherworldly quality.”
“Working with Hamburg-based agency, Philipp und Keuntje we decided to
dramatize the process of the launch by taking users on a journey that creates
a sense of mystery and of a mythical,
legendary product. As myths are shaped
through collective storytelling, participation
was vital: Each visitor is invited to craft
their own part of the legend, and go on
a ‘quest’ to discover the source of the mystery.”
Alongside Philipp und Keuntje, which served as creative lead agency, website
concept, design and programming was executed by Artificial Rome, with film
elements delivered by Sehsucht Berlin.
“A key part of this brief was to ensure that the end result would be as
innovative and high quality as the product itself,” said Mike John Otto, Unit
Director Digital at Philipp und Keuntje. “With an experience that includes both
film elements and 3D graphics, one of our key objectives was to ensure these
transitions were seamlessly executed. We adopted an agile workflow, with many
workshops focused on getting the visuals just right. We were constantly testing
new technologies and incorporating the results into the concept. From a very
early stage it was clear that the website was supposed to have high reach and
at the same time the highest possible visual quality. WebGL was the logical
choice. Interestingly, while WebGL has been seen in many experimental projects,
PRESS RELEASE
“Reshaping Excellence” is one of the first websites to incorporate storytelling to
the impressive visual effects.”
Developing monumental sound effects
Alongside the striking visuals, the “Monument to Sound” theme meant that
developing audio had to take equal priority in the project. This task was the
responsibility of Torsten Sperling, Technology Lead and Partner at Artificial Rome,
who drew on his own experience as a musician to create a resonant and
emotive soundscape for the site.
PRESS RELEASE
“It
was
interactive
very
important
sound
to
that
create
reacted
an
very
accurately to the atmosphere and user
interactions,” explained Sperling. “Using a
combination of very small sound elements,
both
generated
live
and
pre-recorded,
each user can create sound IDs based precisely on the spot that they hit
onscreen when shaping the stone. Thus a virtually unlimited number of individual
sound IDs can be created, and each person’s contribution to the sound
sculpture is entirely unique.”
Audio production and additional sound design was provided by Sebastian Müller
at Hofkapellmeister.
Using state-of-the-art resources
Tools used during the planning process included Axure and Adobe InDesign to
create the overall concept, with the look perfected with Adobe Creative Suite,
which was used by both Artificial Rome and Sehsucht. Unity3D and Three.js
were used for prototyping, while development tools included coffee script,
node.js, grunt, three.js, CSS, and PHP for the backend.
“Creating the visual effects was a very exacting project that required a very
broad range of tools and techniques,” explained Mate Steinforth, Creative
Director and CEO Sehsucht Berlin. “We used Maxon Cinema 4D, Autodesk
Maya,
Z
Brush,
and
Side
for
3D
Modeling
&
Animation;
Houdini
and
Turbulence FD for effects, with Adobe After Effects for compositing and finishing.
We also found OctaneRender to be a perfect and invaluable choice for this
project.”
Industry acclaim
PRESS RELEASE
The Reshaping Excellence website has received several awards from two of the
world’s most highly respected web industry authorities. It has been named “Site
of the Day” (SOTD) and already twice “Site of the Month” (SOTM) by the
“Favorite Website Awards”, an industry recognized internet award program,
which was the first online award program to receive over 200,000,000 site
visitors. The Sennheiser site has also received a “Site of the Month” Award
from Awwwards, a global awards program that recognizes the talent and effort
of the world’s best web designers, developers and agencies.
Only a few more days visitors to the site can build their individual sound
sculptures until the start of the second phase of the campaign on November
3rd
when
the
new
milestone
product
will
be
completely
unveiled
at
www.sennheiser-reshapingexcellence.com.
About Sennheiser
Audio specialist Sennheiser is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of
headphones, microphones and wireless transmission systems. Based in
Wedemark near Hanover, Germany, Sennheiser operates its own production
facilities in Germany, Ireland and the USA and is active in more than 50
countries. With 18 sales subsidiaries and long-established trading partners, the
company supplies innovative products and cutting-edge audio solutions that are
optimally tailored to its customers’ needs. Sennheiser is a family-owned
company that was founded in 1945 and which today has 2,700 employees
around the world that share a passion for audio technology. In 2014, the
Sennheiser Group had sales totalling €635 million.
www.sennheiser.com
Press contacts:
North America:
Jeff Touzeau
Public Relations
Hummingbird Media, Inc.
(914) 602-2913
PRESS RELEASE
jeff@hummingbirdmedia.com
Outside North America
Mareike Oer
Sennheiser electronic GmbH & Co. KG
Head of Global Public Relations
Am Labor 1 • 30900 Wedemark
Phone: +49 (0)5130 600 - 1719
Email: mareike.oer@sennheiser.com
Captions:
Reshaping Excellence Grand View.jpg: Visitors to the site are immediately swept
on a cinematic flight through clouds into a vividly realized fantasy landscape.
In the Canyon.jpg: Gameplay elements involve striking at rocks to shape their
sculpture with each blow making a different sound, thereby forming a completely
individual pattern of sounds.
The Monument of Sound.jpg: As myths are shaped through collective storytelling,
participation was vital: Each visitor is invited to craft their own part of the
legend.
Unique sound sculptures.jpg: A virtually unlimited number of individual sound IDs
can be created, and each person’s contribution to the sound sculpture is
entirely unique.