Post by Teo Camara

Here’s Part II of the behind‑the‑scenes case study for Westpac’s Layers and layers of protection campaign, focusing on the VFX breakdown for the Paid Media Social Post.   The campaign rolled out nationally in 2025 across TVC, radio, print, full‑page newspaper ads, bus stops, billboards, train wraps, station floors, staircases, and even the escalator at Parliament Station in Melbourne. It also extended across online ads, digital screens in stations, airports, bank branches, OOH placements and social media.   This particular ad was published on TikTok and Snapchat Planets. It features an animated version of the digital screens - originally just the girl and the Layers and Layers copy - reimagined for a fast, social‑first format. The creative aligns with the TVC, where our hero is out for a run, checking her Westpac app as layers of protection appear around her: first dogs, then bodyguards, then a helicopter, and finally a futuristic armor. A cyborg‑alien creature attempts to attack her, only to be stopped by the final layer of security: a spaceship firing a laser from above.   For this social post, we adapted that narrative into a tight 12‑second edit. The message lands immediately, followed by the armor reveal, the bodyguards, and a final return to the main message to wrap it up.   The reveal style came from our Art Director, Nicolas Cogels, who referenced a classic Power Rangers transformation. Their version uses a rotating character with a uniform swipe reveal from bottom to top. For our ad, I worked with two stills of the hero - same pose, different outfits - and matched size and position before building the reveal. I layered neon, lightning and smoke effects to get as close as possible to the Power Rangers vibe, while keeping everything consistent with Westpac’s branding: purple backgrounds and pink VFX highlights.   This project was genuinely fun to work on, and I was really happy with how closely we matched the reference while keeping it true to the campaign. For the neon‑smoke reveal, I used Video Copilot Sabre plugin in After Effects across multiple layers to achieve the final look.   The ad performed well above our usual social benchmarks. Our Producer Jeff Edwards and I also flew to Melbourne for a day to visit the campaign sites, including the Bourke Street 3D building animation featured in my previous post. Huge thanks to oOh! Media’s Josh Gurgiel and Sophie McGrath for hosting us so generously. It was an incredible experience.   This case study includes the VFX breakdown, the final social ad, the Power Rangers reference, some of the Melbourne OOH collateral, and the original TVC produced for the campaign.   Producer: Jeff Edwards Art Direction: Nicolas Cogels Motion Graphics Designer: Teo Camara Design: Emily Seto, Zoe Borhani, Georgia Foley Front End Developer: Siddharth Ajmera Finish Artist: Ed Bostock Marketing Managers: Catherine Verge, Anthony Saunig oOh! Team: Josh Gurgiel, Sophie McGrath

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