BACK
IFF Solar Fields: Launch Film
Consumer Goods / Sustainability
Brand Systems
Client
IFF
Timeline
2020
Services
Storytelling Systems
Challenge
A remediated brownfield. A landmark solar build. A story most companies would rather not tell out loud.
IFF was preparing to bring online the largest solar array in its industry, with more than 440,000 square feet of panels across 41 acres in Union Beach, New Jersey, a site that had once been considered unusable. A conventional launch might have meant a ribbon-cutting with mostly local visibility. IFF wanted something with greater reach and lasting value.
The goal was to create a film that could engage many audiences at once, including customers, employees, prospective hires, press, and NGOs. Instead of a one-time event, the video would become a global communications asset that could travel across channels and continue working long after launch.
The more challenging part was tone. The land had been a former manufacturing site that IFF spent decades remediating. Rather than hide that history, the company made a deliberate and uncommon choice to lead with it. The story needed to acknowledge what had happened, show how the team came together, and demonstrate what IFF was doing to move forward.
The brief called for a redemption arc in IFF’s “uncommon, no BS” brand voice. It had to be honest without feeling defensive, optimistic without greenwashing, and cinematic without relying on a single talking head. The film needed to hold grit and beauty in the same frame, pairing the rawness of a reclaimed brownfield with gleaming solar panels and returning wildlife.
Fusion handled the story, production, and on-location capture, including aerial videography. The project was built around a deliberately lean budget, with an emphasis on creating a high-value asset that could deliver ROI across many channels.
Strategic Insight
The strongest sustainability stories don’t start with perfection. They start with accountability, then they show the work, the scale, and the evidence of change.
What We Created
A launch film built to turn remediation into proof, and proof into a story that could travel.
Fusion developed a concise, cinematic brand film that framed IFF’s solar array as more than an infrastructure milestone. We shaped the narrative around accountability, remediation, and renewal; captured the Union Beach site from the air and the ground; and translated technical sustainability proof points into a clear visual story. The result was a single launch asset engineered for global use across web, press, social, internal communications, and commercial sales — honest enough for a sensitive environmental history, polished enough to carry IFF’s sustainability leadership forward.
Built the fault → remediation → renewal arc that carries the whole film, written for IFF’s “uncommon, no BS” voice and structured to work with zero talking heads.
Captured the full site in Union Beach across drone, time-lapse, and ground footage; the scale of the array from above, the texture of the land up close.
Translated the osprey nesting platforms, coastal-flood-elevated equipment, and EV charging into a living conservation-and-stewardship narrative rather than a feature list.
Integrated the launch’s key proof points (41 acres, 440,000 sq ft, 9M+ kWh annually, 1,000-homes-equivalent) into clean motion graphics, in coordination with IFF’s design team.
Delivered the finished ~2-minute film to IFF brand guidelines, including the #DoMoreGood platform, juxtaposing brownfield grit against the beauty of the completed site.
Produced the launch film as a single asset engineered to travel: IFF web (internal and external), press materials, social (LinkedIn, Facebook, X, YouTube), and the commercial sales toolkit for customer engagement.
RESULTS + SIGNALS
What success looked like.
Beyond reach numbers, we point to the signals that matter most: adoption, scope, and the relationship it renewed.
Global Reach
Deployed across owned, earned, and social channels simultaneously.
Flagship Asset
Extended a multi-year production relationship with IFF.
Proof of Concept
No greenwashing. No talking heads. No softening of the message.
WHAT THIS PROVES
Brand Systems
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