Center Parcs has unveiled a new TV advertisement as part of a broader £5 million marketing campaign from creative agency Brothers and Sisters, which celebrates family time in a charming and touching way. The novel twist here, is that instead of a group of generic, everyday people, the campaign features a family of bears representing what human family life is like today: distractions, work challenges, concerns about quality time with their children.
Center Parcs has unveiled a new TV advertisement as part of a broader £5 million marketing campaign from creative agency Brothers and Sisters
The ambitious new campaign centres on the new 60-second TV commercial, which includes digital and video on demand activity, and is timed around the travel industry’s peak booking season as families start to plan their family breaks. It will run until March 2016. The soundtrack to the spot, sung by Ben Madeley, is a beautiful rendition of “True Colours,” which was first made famous in 1986 by Cyndi Lauper. Looks like they’re definitely aiming for some of those sweet John Lewis points, and who could blame them?
The new spot, simply titled “Bears”, aims to help the Center Parcs differentiate itself from other short break destinations. Ben Liam Jones directed the advert through Mustard, with Electric Theatre Collective responsible for CGI animation. Media planning and buying was through Blue 449, whilst Make it Rain handled online search, social content and engagement. Grand Central’s Tom Pugh created the sound design for the spot. It’s a gorgeous piece of work, which might come across as a little cloying, especially coming so soon after Christmas, but the bears are adorable and the craft behind the work is undeniable.
BEARS by Center Parcs
The whole commercial took four months from concept to completion, including the animation which took 25 animators 10,450 hours over three months. Studying footage of live bears to reference and capture their qualities in the advertisement, together with filming professional actors gave the director and production team the detail needed to create the animated ‘bears’ in photo-real CGI animation, when the bears were in ‘human’ scenarios such as the office and commute. Krystian Godlewski, who plays the Mama bear character, is known for his film role as “Groot” in Guardians of the Galaxy; and Dan Phillips who plays the Papa bear character, appeared in TV dramas Between the Lines and Stella. Four child actors and one adult stand-in were used for the girl and boy bear characters.
The whole commercial took four months from concept to completion, including the animation which took 25 animators 10,450 hours over three months
Colin Whaley, Sales and Marketing Director at Center Parcs, said: “Now felt like the right time to be bolder with the way we present ourselves. Families have been telling us that getting the balance between work, chores and quality family time is even more difficult nowadays and this was something that came out strongly from our research. It was important to us that the campaign captured that rewarding feeling of having time and space to reconnect with each other. We want to inspire people to carve out more valuable family time together not just during the Christmas period but in daily life too whether it’s a picnic in the park, family dinner time, bedtime stories together or a short break at Center Parcs of course!”
Matthew Charlton, CEO of Brothers and Sisters, added: “We all spend too much time sitting with our families, in the same room, on different screens. Physically in the same place but mentally we are all apart. Modern life pulls family time apart and incredibly Center Parcs is designed to pull family time back together. We can all see our own lives through this launch campaign and the characters of the Bears.”
