From Ogilvy and production company Psyop come a new trio of highly animated TV spots for IBM’s “Smarter Planet” campaign.

As we’re told in the release, each of these spots was created with the purpose of giving the campaign a more “visually distinctive” look. In the above spot, “All in the Cloud,” 32 animators, illustrators, designers and modelers were tapped to create an imaginary world existing only in the Cloud. To make this place come to life, “Everything in the spot was painted by hand and then mapped onto 3D wireframes to create the completely bespoke look. Each character has a back story which sparked the animators’ imaginations. Every ‘location’ was extensively researched to make sure the transformed world looked like the real one.” Those who fear change will no doubt breathe a sigh of relief upon seeing that IBM’s blue widescreen bars remain intact.

Since IBM’s green “Smarter Planet” marketing campaign launched in early 2009, its television advertising rarely strayed from zipping through closeups of talking faces. In “Smarter Commerce” (above), we see a cardboard box, a sole narrator, and an army of animated paper figures portraying IBM’s benefit to business efficiency. So, are you “Team Faces” or “Team Animation?” Credits and one more spot follow after the jump.

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Though the “Want a Fanta” dancers of yesteryear are absent in a new round of spots from Ogilvy NY and those VFX/animation whizzes at Psyop, Fanta is still being billed as some sort of liquid ecstasy substitute in the company’s latest push to get hip kids with headphones to start ingesting orange soda.

The above spot, “Bounce,” is one of four new ads that, according to what the people involved tell us, introduce a new group of pop-culture savvy characters with an addiction to dancing and caffeine-free carbonated beverages. “In ‘Orange Vision’ we feature a new girl Maud, who just completely steals the show in our minds,” the agency says. “When we started designing her, (experimental R&B singer) Janelle Monae came up a lot for style and personality reference. Her energy is infectious and we really wanted that to come across in Maud as well.”

As crisp as this CGI hipster-laden city looks, we wonder if it will ever match the infectious/annoying beat of that catchy oldie but goody, “Want a Fanta? Dontcha want a?” Now that’s in your head, isn’t it? You’re welcome.  Credits follow after the jump.

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Taking a cue from Jaws, Y&R New York sets the scene in this spot for the LG Kompressor Elite vacuum cleaner. Everything is all fine and dandy, as all the toys are enjoying a day at the carpet until a couple gets separated from the group. They start, well, having fun until (cue the score) things go to hell real quick when some uninvited guests show up for dinner.

The team at Psyop (with the help of Smuggler) built a set on a stage, keeping the CG to a minimum and shot all the plastic toy soldiers, Barbie look-a-likes, designer toys, stuffed animals, etc on that set and implemented CG to give the dolls different facial expressions. The sharks and other subtleties were obviously generated as well.

Psyop CEO and CD Marco Spier says in a statement, “We of course got personally connected with the toys, their characters and the story. Carefully placing them personally on set to get the best performance out of them, kind of like actors. We also liked the idea of having unusual combinations of different characters because that’s how kids play – free form, mixing and matching, and grouping things together based on what they have no hand, or what their siblings or friends have.”

We think it’s safe to say this turned out to be a nice spot with some good imagination – much better than an infomercial of a vacuum sucking up coins and marbles. Credits after the jump.

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