Client: Vivo Smartphones
Product: Vivo V9

The launch of the Vivo V9 smartphone perfectly coincided with the FIFA World Cup. Capitalizing on this massive cultural moment, the client tasked us with creating 15- and 30-second TV commercials that would play off the hype of the tournament.

The brand had already secured a partnership with a professional football club, which included branded match kits and various marketing activations—one of which was our TV commercial production.

Essentially, we kicked off the project with the following brief:

• A new smartphone
• The World Cup vibe
• A pro football team

From these three ingredients, we had to craft a compelling product launch video :) We started by developing brief creative synopses to outline the general direction of the campaign.

Tech Video Production: Developing the Creative Strategy

One of our first major challenges was aligning the creative vision across international teams. We were communicating simultaneously with the local marketing team on the ground and the global marketing team at the HQ in China. When you are a commercial video production company working on a global scale, accurately translating the creative nuances and plot twists into multiple languages is absolutely critical.

This need for precision became even more obvious once the core creative was approved and we moved into detailed scripting and storyboarding. Every single storyboard and brand integration required hundreds of slides. We had to pre-visualize every frame, every camera movement, and every player’s emotion, ensuring the client fully understood our creative choices across all languages before stepping on set.

The storyboard approval process included our selected director. As the agency, we pitched several director candidates to the client and held face-to-face meetings to discuss their creative visions (reviewing their directorial treatments).

Today, our pre-production workflow goes even further: we now leverage AI tools to generate a full animatic that mirrors the final video 1-to-1, ensuring absolute alignment and approval with the client long before the cameras ever start rolling.

Live Action Commercial Production: Managing Athlete Schedules

The next massive hurdle was scheduling the live action commercial production with the team. Our cast included football stars like Jefferson Farfán, Marinato Guilherme, and others. In the run-up to the World Cup, their schedules were insanely packed with training, recovery, and medical check-ups.

Given our commercial production budget, we only had exactly one shooting day (about 7 hours) to get all these heroes in the same place at the same time. After endless logistical gymnastics and approvals, we made it happen.

TV Commercial Production on Set: Lighting, Locations, and Wardrobe

Parallel to scheduling, we conducted extensive location scouting. Thankfully, the football club was willing to provide their own pitches. We had to choose between an open-air field and a closed stadium. We opted for the closed one so we could have full control over the lighting—a crucial factor since we were shooting both day and night scenes in one shift.

However, even though the pitch was indoors, the walls allowed some sunlight to bleed through. Our lighting crew had to work meticulously with fixtures and negative fill (flags) to control the exposure against the shifting sun.

Pre-production also involved custom wardrobe design. The players couldn't wear their standard kits for both legal clearance reasons and visual color grading aesthetics. So, in collaboration with the client, we manufactured long grey sleeves for each player, featuring their names on the back and the Vivo logo on the front.

If you look at the BTS photos, you’ll see just how heavy the lighting setup was. We used massive black flags to block out stray sunbeams, rigged overhead lighting for a suspended glow effect, and brought in practical set lighting—like huge stadium floodlights and LED tubes to outline the goalposts.

Fun fact about tech video production (and film in general): we never shoot linearly according to the script. The shooting schedule is always dictated by the logistics of camera and lighting setups. You build a setup, shoot every single scene that takes place in that specific lighting, and then move on to the next one (a company move that can easily take 30 to 60 minutes).

To keep everything organized for both the crew and the client, we had a massive physical storyboard wall where we crossed off completed shots and tracked what was left. We also set up a dedicated client monitor (video village). The director would approve the creative take first, and then the client would give the final green light.

Simultaneously, we ran a dedicated photo zone adjacent to the main set. Here, a specialized commercial photographer captured images for the campaign’s Key Visuals (KVs) so we could maximize the talent's time.

The TV Commercial Post Production Process: VFX & Screen Replacements

The final, and perhaps most intricate, stage was the TV commercial post production process.

First off: a lot of invisible VFX.

For example, the commercial was slated to air during the World Cup, but during the shoot, the official World Cup ball design hadn't been released yet. So, we shot with the previous year's ball and completely replaced the design in post-production.

Additionally, due to legal broadcast restrictions, we couldn't show any competing brand logos, which meant our VFX team had to manually track and paint out the logos on all the players' football cleats.

Finally, a massive amount of work went into the screen replacements for the smartphone to showcase the UI flawlessly. You can check out the "Before/After" of this whole commercial post production magic in our short breakdown video below.

The Result & Why It Matters

In the end, what started as a challenging brief with a tight timeline and complex logistics turned into a dynamic, high-energy TV spot that perfectly captured the World Cup spirit for Vivo. For us, this project was a textbook example of what it really takes to execute a high-stakes campaign: clear cross-cultural communication, flawless set logistics, and top-tier commercial post production.

As a full-service commercial video production company, we know that behind every effortless-looking ad is a mountain of solved problems. Whether it’s aligning international marketing teams, navigating the impossible schedules of A-list athletes, or pulling off seamless VFX screen replacements frame by frame, we handle the heavy lifting so our clients can focus on the big picture.

Are you gearing up for a major tech product launch, or looking for a reliable partner for your next broadcast campaign? We know how to turn a bold idea into a cinematic reality.

Let’s create something iconic together. Explore our portfolio and learn more about our TV commercial production services here:

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👉 Lava Media — TV Commercial Production