So you're the CD at an agency that's been chosen to create the launch of a new product that's garnered tons of speculative hype months, even years, before its release. But - and it's a big but - your client's main competition has already cornered a whopping 75% of the product's market share. The term "David vs. Goliath" might pop into mind, just seconds before the stress migraine does.

Still, according to 72andSunny CD John Boiler, when the nod came to craft a buzzworthy campaign for Microsoft's newly-released MP3 player Zune, the shadow cast by the market-dominating iPod and its iconic dancing silhouette ads was not as imposing as you'd think. While Apple rarely deviates from its advertising and design template, the Zune approach - in line with the 'social' spirit of the product itself, which allows users to share tracks from Zune to Zune - was "a conscientious effort to make a diverse campaign right out of the gate, which is a clear link to the simple idea of making friendships better through sharing."

Thus, a multi-tiered campaign was devised. Live-action 'Social' clips for broadcast illustrate attractive members of the target demo sharing their tracks in various social settings, while on the web, the Zune Arts portal was created, exhibiting short films from some of the top names in motion graphics, design and animation, as well as printable posters from underground illustrators. The contributor's list looks like a who's-who of the current creative studio vanguard; Motion Theory, Bent Image Lab, The Ebeling Group's Bitstate (aka Pete Circuitt), Passion Pictures' SSSR, Picasso Pictures' Tokyoplastic and Mekanism's Emmett Feldman with Fake ID are just some of the artists represented.

"We had scripts - stories or 'parables' about friendship and sharing - and we gave them to some of the artists we collaborated with," explains Boiler. "[With] some of the artists we said, 'Wow, these people would be perfect for this project', so we'd give them the wide open brief."

The open brief that hinged on the concept of friendship may have been creatively exciting, but some artists were in the dark beyond that. "When they first contacted us, it was pretty early in the process so we didn't really know what it was for," says Motion Theory's Mark Kudsi, art director on the "Two Little Birds" short. "There was a code name, Argo, and very minimal information about the project. We just knew the general idea - the thought that something good comes out of sharing. So they left it to us to brainstorm a lot of different ideas."

Motion Theory's film involved a blending of 2D elements and characters with 3D camera moves following the tale of two birds who share the gift of being able to burst into flame at random moments. The nine film projects currently on the Zune Arts site, with soundtracks supplied from artists including Lily Allen, Mates of State, Regina Spektor and Deerhoof, run the gamut in terms of animation and design, from simple yet charming line drawings (Suzanne Deakin's "Bunny") to surreal and mildly unsettling 3D vignettes (Tokyoplastic's "Eyes", Bitstate's "Monster").

In Bitstate's piece, two giant monsters (vaguely modeled after the Sta-Puf Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters) romp through a city, casually eating its stick-people inhabitants. "They pretty much let us run with the ball," says TEG executive producer Julie Shevach of 72andSunny's involvement. "Their only concern was with the [parts involving] eating people, to make sure that was okay." Says Circuitt with a laugh: "I think they were a little nervous about that at first, but they showed it to Microsoft and they laughed straight away."

While the films are largely whimsical in tone, the amount of work involved for the artists was, in most cases, no laughing matter. Though there were exceptions; Emmett Feldman estimates that his "Pixel Dancers", in which Lego-esque 3D characters exchange "a quick glance, a nice rump bump and a couple of high fives" while sprouting plants from their limbs, took "about one solid work week". But Bent Image Lab's stop-motion tale involving a little girl who melts the heart of a marauding Moodbot required more resources.

"It was a five-week schedule and we had a total of 40 people and a lot of them were working crazy hours," says Bent director Rob Shaw. "For something like this we had to have a general agreement that it was going to require a lot of dedication, late evenings and weekends. But everybody really stepped up."

With reaction from the animation/design communities to the Zune Arts initiative also stepping up, Boiler says the aim is for the site to evolve into a more interactive entity, with user-generated content a distinct possibility. "Do we see this thing being a platform for user-generated content? Yes. But it's not going to be a wide open thing like a YouTube; it's an artist community.

"What you see up on the site right now will transform into a Zune Arts program that is going to have many more facets to it," he continues. "People will be able to vote for artists that they want to see more of, or people can suggest collaborations between video and music artists that we can then execute. The potential for growth is infinite, as long as it stays interesting."

Zune Arts www.zune-arts.com
72andSunny www.72andsunny.com
Bent Image Lab www.bentimagelab.com
Bitstate www.bitstate.com
Emmett Feldman www.suryummy.tv
Motion Theory www.motiontheory.com
Tokyoplastic www.tokyoplastic.com