Casestudy / CUMI
How an explainer film and two catalogues made CUMI's hidden industrial ceramics visible
Industry
Manufacturing
Geography
India
Scope
Films, Catalogues, Events
2:512D explainer film
12CUMI applications labelled on screen
6industry sectors in the closing map
16page Technical Ceramics catalogue
CUMI (Carborundum Universal Limited) is a materials company in the Murugappa Group. Its Industrial Ceramics Division, based in Hosur, makes technical and wear ceramics: the insulators, liners, seals and housings that work inside circuit breakers, mills, chip fabs, engines and trains.
That makes the product hard to show. A CUMI part does its job out of sight, inside someone else's machine, and the people who buy it are engineers who notice a wrong detail.
CUMI first briefed us in 2013. We design the brief before we design the deliverable, and on this account the brief keeps coming back to one job: make a material nobody sees easy to remember, without simplifying it.
- Client
- CUMI (Carborundum Universal Limited), Murugappa Group
- Industry
- Manufacturing: technical ceramics, wear ceramics, abrasives
- Geography
- Tamil Nadu, India
- Audience
- Engineers and industrial buyers in power, mining, steel, electronics, mobility, healthcare and defence; CUMI's own teams
- Services
- 2D and 3D explainer video, live-action film, catalogue and print design, event graphics
- Deliverables
- 2:51 explainer film, 3D explainer, 25th-anniversary film, event films, two product catalogues, brochures, trade-show and event graphics
- Language
- English
The brief
Start with the ceramic everyone already owns
The 2024 film for the Industrial Ceramics Division had two audiences. Engineers buy these ceramics by specification. Almost everyone else has never thought about them at all.
So the film opens on a ceramic everyone knows. An old clay bowl turns into a jug, then a teacup. A woman drinks from it, switches on a light, and the camera follows the power line out of her window. Every scene after that goes one layer deeper into industry.
Cutaways
Open the machine, then name the part inside
Each industry gets a cutaway. The camera reaches a substation, a mineral plant, a wafer fab or an engine, the casing opens, and a label names the CUMI part at work: wear-resistant liners for mining, cement and steel plants, metallised ceramics for vacuum circuit breakers, ceramic housings for spark plugs.
Twelve applications are labelled this way, in CUMI's own product language, so an engineer watching sees the actual part and what it does.
Inside the film
From the power grid to the operating theatre
The film moves the way a day does, from the grid and the plant floor to the car, the hospital, the kitchen and the front line, with a CUMI part in every scene.
Catalogues
The same brand on paper as on screen
The Technical Ceramics catalogue picks up where the film ends. It opens on the same line, Future is ceramic is future, its cover is a circuit-board city like the film's, and its product shots sit on the film's blue-to-amber gradient.
The Wear Ceramics catalogue sets CUMI's CUMITUFF range for mining, power, cement and steel plants in the same system. A buyer who has seen the film meets the same brand in the catalogue and again at the trade-show stand.
Live action
Twenty-five years, filmed on the plant floor
When the Industrial Ceramics Division turned 25 in 2016, we made its anniversary film. We shot it at the plant in Hosur, from a drone over the campus to the kilns, presses and inspection benches, and cut it with a motion-graphics timeline of the division's history.
It was shown at the division's silver jubilee event in Hosur. Seven years later, briefing the 2024 explainer, CUMI asked for this film's voice-over artist again.
Trade shows and events
One brand at the stand and on stage
For India Steel Expo 2025 we set out CUMI's wear-protection range for steel plants as one backlit map: eight product lines around a single promise. For CUFEST 2024, CUMI's internal event, we designed the event mark around its theme of grit, glory and growth, along with the venue graphics and the event film.
Where it landed
Design that compounds, film by film and page by page
The 3D film already labelled its applications on screen. The 2024 film does the same through cutaways, and its look now runs through the catalogues and the trade-show graphics, so the brand reads the same wherever a buyer meets it.
6films for CUMI
25thanniversary film, shot at the plant
2catalogues in the film's look
Ongoingprint and trade-show work
Briefing us on the next project
…in the video – “The Power of Grit” and also the recent “Silver Jubilee Movie” – the story telling is seamless and there are no discontinuities.
Earlier films
Before the explainer, three more films
CUMI's first brief to us, in 2013, became the 3D film below. The same year we made the theme film for CUFEST, CUMI's annual internal event; the other two followed in 2016.
3D explainer
The power of grit
Event film
To inspire, to involve, to innovate
Live action
Twenty-five years of making materials matter
Questions buyers ask
Planning a film or catalogue for an industrial product?
Can a video explain a technical product without dumbing it down?
Yes. CUMI's film opens on a teacup, so anyone can follow it, and then every scene names the real application in CUMI's own product language: wear-resistant liners for mining and cement plants, metallised ceramics for vacuum circuit breakers, ceramic insulation for electric vehicles. Engineers get the detail they check for, and everyone else gets the story.
How much does an industrial explainer video cost?
How long does an explainer video take to make?
For a studio-made film, 2D animation takes three to four weeks of production, 3D animation five to eight weeks, and live action four to eight weeks, plus the time your team needs for reviews.
Can the same team make our film and our product catalogue?
Yes. For CUMI we designed the Technical Ceramics and Wear Ceramics catalogues while the explainer film was in production, and kept them in step with it: the same colours, the film's circuit-board city on the cover, and its closing line inside. One team means a buyer meets the same brand on the screen, on paper and at the stand.
Do you work with manufacturers in India?
Yes. CUMI, a Murugappa Group company in Tamil Nadu, first briefed us in 2013. Since then we have made its explainer, 3D, live-action and event films, its product catalogues, and graphics for its trade shows and internal events.
For the record
CUMI industrial explainer video and catalogues: the facts
WowMakers has made films and print for CUMI (Carborundum Universal Limited), a Murugappa Group materials company in Tamil Nadu, India, starting with its first brief in 2013. For the Industrial Ceramics Division we made a 2:51 2D animated explainer video in English (2024) that follows ceramics from a teacup into power, mining, semiconductors, rail, electric vehicles, healthcare, kitchens, defence and space, and labels twelve CUMI applications on screen; the 16-page Technical Ceramics catalogue and the Wear Ceramics catalogue in the same visual language; a live-action film for the division's 25th anniversary, shot at the Hosur plant; graphics for India Steel Expo 2025; and the identity, graphics and event film for CUFEST 2024. Earlier work includes a 3D explainer film and CUFEST event films for 2013 and 2016.
Work with us
Making something that works out of sight?
We can explain a technical product to engineers and buyers in one film, then carry the same look into your catalogue and your trade-show stand.
Or explore our animated explainer video, live-action video and branding services, and other case studies.
