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Emirates
Destination Storytelling

2016–2022
Emirates' problem in Europe was never awareness. It was desire. The airline flies to more places than most people will visit in a lifetime, so the job was to make those places feel worth going to: not a route map, but a promise. I was one of the Art Directors on the account at Geometry Global (later VMLY&R Commerce) for six years. This page collects work from that time.
Role
Art Director
client
Emirates
Agency
VMLY&R Commerce / Geometry Global
Type
Brand Activation • Motion Design

(2019) SIGNAL Festival Prague

Signal Festival Prague 2019 Recording Emirates Video Mapping, Lyčkovo Square
Context

Emirates was the main sponsor of SIGNAL 2019, Prague's international festival of light and digital art, staged across the historic city centre. SIGNAL's rule was clear: no conventional advertising between the artworks. Any brand presence had to hold its own next to the installations, as something worth watching in its own right.

Concept

I developed the concept and creative brief for the Emirates commission. The idea: give every Emirates destination relevant to the Czech market its own visual character. Asia-Pacific, Australia, the Middle East, each built from its cultural motifs and national symbols, animated into one continuous journey rather than a run of hard cuts.

It opens on an Emirates aircraft taking off, the silhouette and livery unmistakable, then travels from destination world to destination world, each its own moment.

Draft Layouts

The brief went to illo, an Italian motion studio and regular SIGNAL collaborator, who brought it to life with character-led animation: playful, culturally specific, rich. An early route idea set the direction: a rainbow colourway, one hue per destination, joyful rather than corporate. Full-screen wipes carried the first transitions. illo then proposed a spinning-circle transition that loosened the colour logic and gave the piece more momentum.

Typographic destination messaging and a CTA were first rejected by the festival as too commercial. We argued for a more restrained treatment, and they approved it.

From concept onward my role was art direction and brand review across illo's production, keeping the work true to the Emirates visual language while giving illo the latitude the festival demanded.

SIGNAL Route Art Direction Draft Layout Dubai Opening
SIGNAL Route Art Direction Draft Layout Australia
SIGNAL Route Art Direction Draft Layout Maldives
SIGNAL Route Art Direction Draft Layout End Screen Draft Technological
An early route frame, setting the rainbow colourway and the culturally specific icons for each destination.
Results

The piece played on the facade of an Art Nouveau school at Lyčkovo Square, every evening of the festival. SIGNAL 2019 drew over 500,000 visitors across its Prague venues.

It ran as a two-person effort on our side: one account director and me. It moved efficiently, handled the festival's concerns without friction, and delivered something both the client and the festival were happy with. The year after, Emirates was set to headline the festival and I developed a much larger installation concept. It didn't happen. COVID cancelled SIGNAL 2020.

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SIGNAL Visitor Numbers and other stats

(2017) The Taste, Sat.1 TV Sponsoring

Context

Emirates sponsored "The Taste" on Sat.1, one of Germany's biggest cooking formats, and ran a companion advertorial series straight after each episode:
"Tastes of the World."

The idea was simple and right: Emirates' chef Heiko Schäfer presents the culinary highlights of the airline's destinations, turning each episode into a taste of the trip. Nine advertorials, primetime, DACH.

I re-edited and extended the case film for award submissions, adding visuals to make the campaign's reach and results legible in a competition context.

Teaser trailers: 15-second YouTube ads that ran ahead of each week's episode, driving the audience to the Emirates "The Taste" microsite.

Tactical assets: 10-second videos for Instagram and Facebook, feed and stories, carrying the price message to food- and travel-minded audiences.

My Role

I was in the annual DACH planning cycle from the start, where the strategy and campaign measures get pitched and agreed, and carried it through to delivery across every touchpoint we owned. The main TV segments were produced externally. Everything that kept Emirates present and consistent across the sponsorship was mine: the full motion-graphics package (logo animation, idents, on-air assets), every paid social format, the teaser trailers that closed each episode, the Smart TV content, and the animated assets on the campaign microsite.

A snippet from the Emirates The Taste Sponsoring Microsite for Mauritius.
The sponsored microsite gave each weekly destination room to breathe: a short introduction, the recipes from that episode's segment, and a flight-booking quick-card.
Results

Self-reported campaign research (SevenOne Media / Payback, n=1,000 regular Sat.1 viewers, 25–54) and the SevenOne case film:

  • +95% brand ad recall among regular viewers.
  • 97% watched the advertorials to the end.
  • +32% brand equity over the campaign period.
  • 82% of regular viewers said they would now book Emirates.

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The completion, brand-equity and booking-intent figures come from the SevenOne / Emirates case film.

Contact me
Project overview
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Open to new projects and roles.
info
Frankfurt am Main
e.nachtwein@gmail.com
Social
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