ROOF Fills it Up with Whimsy for Conoco’s ‘Choose Go’ Campaign

Incorporating elements from stop-motion to classic video games, the studio created 6 3D animated spots featuring unique ‘Goer’ characters who embark on whimsical adventures that start and end after gassing up.

ROOF Studio (ROOF) recently produced a series of six 3D animated shorts for the Choose Go campaign, conceived by Agency Carmichael Lynch for Conoco. The shorts illustrate fun adventures had after filling up your car and just “going.” The campaign was launched across digital and social media.

Each 15-second spot follows a different character on a whimsical adventure that begins and concludes with a pit stop at the Conoco station. The ‘Goers’ range from Gilly, who takes a dreamy cruise behind the wheel of a bed-like automobile, to Gilbert the Goer, a tiny cheetah sporting a large sock as a sweater in a car built out of a shoe.

“Some folks are born with ‘go’ deeply embedded in their DNA,” noted Michelle Lippman, senior writer at Carmichael Lynch. “This campaign demonstrates a true Goer won’t stop going — especially after the last two years. They’ve developed new hobbies, made bucket lists, and won’t let a chance to hit the road or explore a new activity go unmissed again.”

The characters were conceived by ROOF director Lucas Camargo, and include elements of stop-motion, mechanical theater backgrounds, and classic video games.

“Carmichael Lynch approached us with these super imaginative scripts with surreal storylines and characters who are always on the move,” shared Camargo, whose own offbeat-character artwork served as an initial reference point for the client. “Our challenge was to figure out the visual and narrative mechanisms for getting them from point A to point Z. It was an exciting concept to push around as animators and a blank canvas where we could have fun and create from the ground up.”

For the overall tone, Camargo leaned into a highly stylized and simplified visual look. Creating a modular template for the films, he structured each scene like a comic strip or a GIF – together, they’d tell a larger story or work as quick loopable content. This approach allowed ROOF to maximize production value by focusing on tactile-seeming characters and textures while allowing the lighting and camera movement to create depth, momentum, and detail.

Check out Gilly the Goer in “Conoco | Dreams:”

Conoco | Dreams from Roof Studio on Vimeo.

“I took inspiration from stop-motion to evoke a handmade feeling,” noted Camargo. “We wanted the world in all of these films to have the same kineticism as a clockwork mechanical theater. With the backgrounds being pulled in and out, we created a sense of motion, like the pistons and cylinders of an engine.”

The campaign was an opportunity for ROOF to build a unique world of characters for Conoco that invites viewers to catch fun new details through a repeat viewing experience.

“We really went for the surreal,” said Camargo. “I’m grateful to the agency and client for being supportive and trusting my crazy creative style and process to bring their vision to life.”

“Lucas and the ROOF team were collaborative and accommodating throughout the creative process of this project,” concluded Sarah Wolf, designer at Carmichael Lynch. “We brought forward an idea that explored truly unique characters and an entire new world, and the team didn’t disappoint. We were blown away by their level of detail and creativity and the end results were truly stunning.”

Watch the rest of the 15-second spots:

“Conoco | Lost:”