Soho advertising executives Ben Cyzer and Tim Phillips had worked for big agencies for years. Both had thought about setting up their own firms, but they hadn’t found the right concept.
They came up with the idea for Artificial Artists when they were working at Hollywood special effects giant Moving Picture Company in London in its advertising filmmaking division. Remember those cute animated penguins in the John Lewis ads? It was their teams that made them look so real.
While creating beautiful, long, TV and cinema ads was satisfying, Mr Cyzer, a managing partner, kept hearing the same gripe from clients: they wanted slick 3D animation, but for the newer breed of ad — digital. And the market couldn’t provide it at an affordable price.
So, the pair thought, what if they created software so easy to use that companies’ marketing managers could make their own 3D ads? They quit their jobs and hired three software developers to design a program, 3dctrl, that fitted the bill and is now being piloted by several fashion and car companies.
Artificial Artists simply uploads images of the client’s product to 3dctrl and it creates a 3D version which can be spun around and put into backdrops — creating a serviceable advert in minutes.
They had borrowed from friends and family and used savings but now, having proved their business worked, they needed investment. Mr Cyzer said: “We read about the Kickstart Fund and how we might be able to get a quick answer, so we figured we might as well apply.”
Within days, they were called in to meet Kickstart financiers Triple Point and a week later had signed terms for a £150,000 investment. Mr Cyzer said: “It was brilliant. So quick. And it’s going to change our business.” Daniel Cardenas-Clark, investor at Triple Point, said: “They have built a game-changing product that not only makes it easy to create 3D animation, but has also significantly brought down the cost of doing so.”
Theirs is precisely the kind of business that will power London out of Covid’s economic black hole. Clever, brilliantly executed and likely to employ many Londoners for years to come.
