Chevrolet Camaro Interactive Website with Patent Pending Configurator Engine

June 10, 2009.
3D integrated digital production studio Speedshape recently teamed with ad agency Campbell Ewald to produce an interactive website for marketing and showcasing the all-new 2010 Chevrolet Camaro. The site allows customers to custom-build their dream Camaro, virtually, with up-to-the-minute pricing and specialized product configuration, providing the ultimate online car-shopping experience.

Essential to the Camaro website's user-friendly, interactive elements was Speedshape's custom-built product configurator engine. Based on thousand of optimized components, the configurator engine yielded the site's + 50 million unique images, providing comprehensive specs for the 2010 Camaro including 5 trim choices, 10 colors and 17 additional accessories (all viewable in three different angles).

Campbell Ewald approached Speedshape with the goal of creating an interactive website that exuded design and function parallel to the Camaro's own sleek artistry and craft; moreover, market to Chevrolet clientele through a seamless, interactive user-experience while enhancing Chevrolet's ability to effectively commerce.

Considering Campbell Ewald's needs, Speedshape opted to use their patent pending, flexible and scaleable configurator engine for a fast to market solution -- a solution beneficial to both the end-client Chevrolet and its clientele.

"A simplified product configurator engine is an essential business tool for selling any configured product," says Speedshape's VP of Production, Anthony Salinas. "Firstly, it empowers the customer with a very hands-on, visually-driven shopping experience, with perks like up-to-the-minute product specs, rapid quotes and proposals, to name a few."

The solution to custom-build a flexible, scaleable product configurator, however, presented Speedshape with a unique challenge in itself: "Specialized configurator engines can be especially complex and costly to build and maintain -- and must be built with precision; otherwise, you run the risk of creating a slow and cumbersome user experience," adds Salinas.

With robust creativity, product knowledge, and leading edge programming, Speedshape was able to deliver a cost-effective configurator experience, while addressing all the complexities they come with. The key, according to Speedshape, is to have flexible code that can be easily modified for client requirements.

The configurator engine, by design, maximized Speedshape's creative capabilities and streamlined the production process. The simplified product configurator engine handles hi-rez visuals; it facilitates all the desired flexibility, configuring colors, accessories and meta data; it requires no additional hardware or special software; and, finally, it offers flexibility and scalability, with low-cost long-term maintenance well beyond the product launch.

The Camaro Project exemplifies Speedshape's all-encompassing expertise in enhancing its client's digital marketing capabilities -- no matter the project's size or scope. By creating the specialized configurator engine, Speedshape served the premise for not only a successful collaboration, but also a functional and sleek web interface.

"This was a three-tiered execution, from the creative to product knowledge to programming," concludes Salinas. "We're excited to have created a configurator-engine that can be used for virtually any product. An added advantage to what we've created is definitely our ability to streamline the collaborative process. By implementing our custom-built configurator engine we could also provide both the agency and end-client Chevrolet a lot of creative flexibility and piece-of-mind, as all the visual content and interfaces could be viewed directly on our web-based engine."

3D integrated digital production studio Speedshape specializes in helming creative content for commercial, broadcast design, interactive and print campaigns for a diverse line-up of clients including Ford, SAAB, Fox Sports, and Michelin, among others. Speedshape enjoys strategic partnerships with Microsoft and HP, to name just a few. With a production model defined by simplicity, creativity, and flexibility, Speedshape can seamlessly insert creative content into existing campaigns, or come up with a big idea that will leverage all the company strengths into an effective, dynamic, and integrated effort.

(source: Hypeworld)