Case study · Kiehl's Since 1851 (direct)
Six environments, approved before a panel was milled.
A worldwide experiential system for Kiehl's — pavilions, plazas, and apothecary windows resolved entirely in PREVIZ before fabrication.
The challenge
Make Kiehl's hero formulas legible at street scale — from Central Park to APAC flagship districts — without the work ever reading as signage. Experiential builds are the most expensive place in marketing to discover a mistake: once a panel is milled, every change is a change order.
The PREVIZ approach
Every activation was resolved end-to-end inside PREVIZ before build. Site context, sun position, foot-traffic sightlines, copy hierarchy, and hero-product placement were approved as motion — so fabrication, retail, and the global marketing org received the final film of the experience, not a rendering of a possibility.
Outcomes
04
6
Environments, one apothecary language
Pavilions, plazas, and window systems — all previz-locked before fabrication.
2
Formats running in parallel
Free-standing public pavilions and the flagship apothecary-window system.
Once
Every panel milled right the first time
Fabrication began only after the client had walked the space as motion — no rebuild round, the classic budget-killer of physical retail.
Global
Deployment from one file
New York and SoHo to Asia-Pacific flagship districts — tuned per market, per formula, per season.
01
Architecture, not signage
The answer to the brief was scale: the jar becomes a pavilion, the serum bottle a column, the storefront window a formulation chart. That only works if the proportions work — and proportions are exactly what PREVIZ interrogates before anyone commits to steel and marble.
02
Virtual scouting for real streets
Each site — Central Park lawn, SoHo cobblestones, APAC plaza — was previsualized in context: sun position across the day, pedestrian sightlines, the exact distance at which the tactile claim becomes readable. The activation was walked, in motion, before it existed.
What shipped to fabrication was therefore not a concept deck. It was the final film of the experience, frame-accurate to what opened on the street.
03
Previz as the deliverable
This engagement is AIM's cleanest case of previz-as-deliverable on the brand-direct side: no agency layer, no production company in the middle. Kiehl's brand stewards and AIM worked the file until the activation was inevitable — then deployed the same vocabulary across two formats and every market.
From the file
“What shipped to fabrication was already the final film of the experience — not a rendering of a possibility.”
— AIM · Kiehl's engagement notes
The work
06
AIM PREVIZ
Bring PREVIZ to your next production.
Sign off on motion, not moodboards. Blocking, look-dev, and continuity locked before a single frame is shot.