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Meet two birds of a feather, Ruby & Ralph. These robins have been pals since the incubation days. Ralph’s a real character, but he’s still working on getting his wings and this has got Ruby thinking about the perfect gift for him this Christmas.

Ruby and Ralph - Something Wonderful Is About To Happen, was created for Virgin Experience Days 2015 Christmas Campaign.

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The Brief:

Create an emotive digital campaign based on the anticipation of the festive season and waiting for Christmas. The feeling of anticipation is associated with experience day gifts - planning and looking forward to doing something different, The excitement of receiving the latest gadget or designer clothing is very short-lived in comparison.

Quote Virgin founder, Richard Branson, “Nothing is nicer than anticipating something wonderful.”

The Creative Response:

Virgin Experience Days in-house Creative & Marketing team devised a story about two robins who were childhood friends. One of the robins, Ralph, hadn’t yet learnt to fly, and was upset he couldn’t join in with all the other birds. Ruby, his best friend, purchases a Virgin Experience Days gift and can’t wait to give it to Ralph, counting down the days on the calendar. On Christmas Day she gives Ralph the present, and they both couldn’t be happier. The story finishes with Ralph on his Flying Lesson with Ruby flying alongside.

The film was created entirely in-house by Virgin Experience Days Creative team.

MODO was used as primary tool for all modelling, texturing, rigging, animating and rendering. Compositing was completed in After Effects.

The narrative / poem was created in-house by Virgin Experience Days Copywriting team.

The entire campaign took around 3 months from initial concept to delivery.

The total cost of this project was just £2000, to cover voiceover, music licensing and cloud based rendering services.

The film was primarily used on Youtube and social in various cuts for TrueView and paid social, as well as on a landing page for the campaign on the Virgin Experience Days website.

Virgin Experience Days Team Credits:

Design Lead - Craig Francies
Storyboard - Liam Howard-Jones & Craig Francies
3D Design & Animation - Craig Francies
Copywriters - Robbie Povey & Stuart Thomas