Client: Bentley
Production Company: UNIT9
Awards: FWA
For its 100th birthday, Bentley looked forward rather than back, unveiling the EXP 100 GT, a concept car that imagined luxury driving in 2035. The launch took place at Bentley’s headquarters in Crewe, but there was only one car, and Bentley wanted far more people than could fit in one room to get up close to it. So alongside the event, we built a digital way in: a campaign website with a WebGL model of the car to explore its design and features, an AR app that brought a life-size version of the car to showrooms, homes, and offices, and a livestream of the launch for a global audience.
As digital producer, I ran the digital side of the project day to day. It was an extremely confidential project, as the EXP 100 GT was kept under wraps right up until the unveiling. We worked securely with Bentley’s CAD files of the car and stayed in close contact with their security team throughout.
One of the hardest parts of the project was making a concept car look as good on screen as it does in person, and getting it right twice, once for the web and again for AR on mobile devices, meant a lot of back and forth with our 3D artists and developers to keep the detail without losing performance. I took the AR app all the way from concept, through UX and UI design, to launch on the App Store.
As there was only one real car, we also produced life-size floor vinyls for selected Bentley showrooms, which showed customers the car’s true scale and doubled as AR triggers. When scanned, a full-size EXP 100 GT appeared right there in the showroom, ready to walk around and look inside. On launch day, I worked with the on-site livestream team to broadcast the unveiling through the campaign website.