Black Flag kills giant invading space ants attacking Houston building dead (aka, 3D wall ad)

Woah! Here's a 3D wall ad that manages to be creepier than the entire 1975 B-movie classic Giant Spider invasion, and has a better storyline to boot. Giant ants crawl all over this building, until a giant black flag can sprays them all dead. So it's true then, Black Flag really does Control Your World. Lets all bow down to the giant Black Flag can - the only thing that can save us from invading giant ants from outer space!!

Fine, so I'll cut down on the marathon 70's scary movie nights on cable. You guys never let me have any fun.

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On June 4, thousands of Houstonian baseball fans got their first view of a new, ultra-lifelike, 3-dimensional outdoor projection media. Unhappily for myrmecophobes in the crowd, what they saw projected was a swarm of gigantic red ants. The event was advertising agency Marcus Thomas, Cleveland’s first work for their new client, Black Flag, a division of the Homax Group.

Following the Houston Astros night game, before and during stadium fireworks, giant (10-foot long) 3D ants appeared to crawl one by one onto a Veteran Administration’s building facing Minute Maid Park, swarming onto the wall until it was engulfed. (A contribution has been made to the the VA.) A Black Flag aerosol can appeared to spray, and the ants fell dead. The virtual infestation repeated every 60 seconds.

If “Show bug, kill bug,” is an insecticide advertising staple, the agency took pains to make its presentation new. The projection process, called animated 3D mapping, involves recreating a detailed 3D model of the projection surface—the VA building walls—in computer, and modeling the animation around that surface. Black Flag’s is the first U.S. ad use of the technology for a non-video-related product.

The projection event goal is to increase Black Flag’s top-of-mind awareness. The Texas market was chosen for the first presentation (additional events under consideration) thanks to its notorious bug problems. (Fire ants cause $1.2 billion in damage in the state, according to Texas A&M.)

Black Flag, first sold in 1833, is America’s oldest insecticide. Since 2007, the brand has been owned by the Homax Group, Bellingham, Wash. www.homaxproducts.com

ECD: Joanne Kim
CD: Jim Sollisch
AD: James Gough
CW: T.J. Prochaska
Producer: Nikki Di Franco

Animation: Digital Illusions, Cleveland
CD: Ann DeVilbiss

Projection: Bluewater Technologies, Southfield, Mich.
Prod’n. Asst.: Sean Moskey