How strategic CGI became the lifeline for a supplement that wasn’t selling online

Premium brands today know that most sales happen online, so their digital shelf must look as pristine as a high-end physical store would. Upgraders is precisely this type of brand, focusing on wellness, gut health, and sustainable weight loss. They were preparing to launch their flagship product, and their founder Helen Loorents aptly called it a “lifeline” issue on a call with us. We get it. 

Their premium offering — the 21-Day Gut Reset Box — was already made with care. However, Helen thought the visual presentation they already had for it did not communicate its value. We thought so, too, once we saw the initial digital assets. Clearly, they weren’t in sync with the almost 300-euro price point. Simply put, this meant few online customers would feel compelled to click buy seeing those images (that’s why we said those things about pristine digital shelves). That’s why they weren’t exactly booming yet.

The product (which is more like a system) contains:

• The main product box, designed with a clean, minimalist aesthetic
• Four unique supplements in premium brown glass bottles: Digestive Complex, Synbiotic Complex, Magnesium Complex, and Mineral Complex
• A detailed, soft-cover program guide
• A set of pH strips for tracking progress

Luckily, both Helen and our team knew traditional photography was not the way forward here. Getting that clean, premium aesthetic and keeping it consistent across 14 images (plus an animation) would have been impossible. But that’s not to say CGI would solve this with a click. Among the main challenges: managing multilingual packaging for both English and German markets, and creating those medical-grade inspired marketing shots.

Here’s how we went about solving those challenges, and how we de-risked Upgraders’ launch and set them on their path to success.

Our projects always begin with a conversation. Not a quick WhatsApp chat, though. A series of deep-dive meetings until both the brand’s creative team and ours are happy and fully aligned. That’s what happened with Upgraders, too. Helen told us all about the brand’s identity and her creative vision, until this became a shared one with a clear end goal in mind. We analyzed similar brands, sprinkled their visual language with Upgraders’ personal touch, and thus defined the desired aesthetic: clean, minimalistic, sophisticated, and with that medical-grade precision that tells the buyer, “We know what we’re doing.”

The goal:

• 14 distinct high-resolution images, including catalog shots for the shop, open-and-closed box views, and stylized hero images for the homepage.
• One 15-second product animation with six voiceovers (three in English, three in German) to serve as a dynamic video element on the website.

This process was managed throughout in a shared creative brief. That’s the living document that evolves with our conversations, keeping us in sync from start to end.

Our team (led by our artist Dennis) started the digital sculpting process from the said creative vision. We used Blender and other industry-standard software to construct every single bit of the Upgraders’ kit (the box, the four brown glass bottles, the program guide, and the pH strips) from scratch. The end goal here is a perfect digital twin of the actual product. Yep, everything from ratios and real-world dimensions to the texture of the label or the shine of the material.

That’s where the first challenge popped up: the supplement contents. Helen actually used the word “ugly” to describe them. Meaning in reality, they just didn’t look that premium. So a simple photographic representation wouldn’t do. That’s exactly where CGI shines, if you ask us. We upgraded (pun intended) the contents, making them look more “appetizing and inspirational.” Think elegant, solid capsules and fine, pure powders that visually communicate efficacy and quality.

Texturing is that fun stage where the digital models are brought to life. Our team created, then applied hyper-realistic surface materials (these are the ones that dictate how each object reacts to light). 

Here’s how we solved several challenges that Upgraders just couldn’t solve with traditional photography:

• Translucent materials: the brown glass. Inspired by The Ordinary’s product shots, we made a custom shader to mimic the exact look of the translucent bottles. This meant light passed through the material realistically, creating depth and that premium look.
• Solving the legibility crisis instantly. During a review, the client noted that the gray German text on the white box was difficult to read. In a traditional photoshoot, this would have meant a whole reshoot: expensive and long. With CGI, we simply adjusted the texture’s contrast directly in the source files. Instant results, without compromising the packaging design.
• Achieving perfect scale and context. The client initially requested that we avoid showing hands, concerned they may look a bit tacky. We advised towards it: a hand is crucial for showing scale. This creates a more relatable feel and reduces customer disappointment when they get the actual product. 

Nailing the “impossible shot.” CGI lets us create the “impossible shot” time and time again. That’s a perfectly clean, stylized composition that would be a logistical nightmare (if not entirely impossible) in a physical studio. We got flawless arrangements and lighting, consistent across all 14 images, to drive the point home.

We make it sound like it’s an entirely different animal… and it is! But CGI’s roots are still in real-world studio photography. This becomes super obvious during the lighting process. Our creative team built a complete digital lighting studio around the Upraders’ product, drawing from years of experience in actual photography. We sculpted the assets with light: large, soft gradient sources to replicate the diffusion, plus that gentle falloff you’d find in a high-end product shoot (Helen requested a “Chanel style” for the animation). This is what makes materials feel rich and tangible.

The final stage of our process is a hybrid. We mix the strengths of 3D rendering with the fine-tuning capabilities of 2D post-production tools (e.g., Photoshop). We rendered all products on a transparent background. We could thus composite the final shots and make sure the background (a specific light gray inspired by The Ordinary’s branding) was perfectly consistent. We also nailed the exact color Upgraders wanted — another recurrent headache in traditional photoshoots. 

Let’s talk results now.

When all was said and done, we got what we wanted: gorgeous images, plus a suite of strategic assets that solved Upgraders’ “lifeline” problem. This means Upgraders got what they wanted, aka more online customers and more sales.

The final deliverables included:

• Catalog imagery: a full suite of e-commerce images, including shots of each individual supplement bottle with its contents tastefully displayed, a clean view of the closed box, and a stunning open-box composition. The latter was arranged to display all contents, with special emphasis on the program guide.
• Hero imagery: During a collaborative session to finalize the hero image, we proposed a more dynamic composition. To add visual balance and a little excitement for the product pipeline, we introduced a stylized version of Upgraders’ upcoming product: a smaller black box. This turned a simple product shot into a piece of forward-looking brand storytelling.
• Product animation: a sophisticated 15-second animation for the homepage video header, “Chanel style.” Smooth camera pans and refined piano music create a premium and immersive introduction for the brand.

But as we always stress, the value goes far beyond the assets themselves:

• Commercial success: The visuals directly addressed the sales conversion problem. The final presentation matched the product’s high-end positioning and gave customers the confidence needed to click buy.
• Asset flexibility: Now, Upgraders have a permanent library of digital assets. Future updates for label changes, new packaging, or product launches (like the upcoming test kits and personalized symbiotics) can now happen quickly and cost-effectively, no more photoshoots needed.
• Speed + control: Upgraders could request real-time creative pivots. We were with them every step of the way. This meant the final output was 100% what they envisioned. Not to mention, we delivered these assets under a super-tight deadline, on December 31.

The success of the Upgraders project, if you ask us, it’s fast proof that strategic investment in CGI can directly impact a brand’s bottom line and future-proof its visual marketing efforts.

The success of the Upgraders launch proves our core principle: for premium brands, world-class CGI is a must. It’s not even just our principle; countless brands are doing it right now. We were Upgraders’ visual strategists. We identified a value-perception gap and addressed it with a precise, technology-driven approach. The result: a flexible, future-ready system that can now support Upgraders’ long-term brand growth.

Investing in superior visuals is a direct investment in brand equity, customer trust, and why be shy, sales. In 2026, there’s no sales without qualitative product images. Now, professional CGI is the one thing that can match a very specific vision to the product presentation. Get in touch with us today, and we’ll discuss how our CGI workflow can help you nail your business goals.