With the opportunity to promote the new series of Dancing on Ice we wanted to build on the success of the previous year’s Polar Bear campaign and continue the narrative of the Polar Bears that captured the heart of the nation and the magic of Dancing on Ice.

The aim of the campaign was to raise awareness around the return of Dancing on Ice. Coupled with this, the campaign brief was to strengthen our reputation for campaigns that cut through, create conversation and promote our shows in a fresh and exciting way.

We created a photo-reel look through our animation, showcasing the wonder and surprise of animals dancing. Our animation style emphasised real life features, from the detail of fur and the glint in an eye. The whole film was created in CGI. The layout in 3D for all shots was done within one single animation scene in Maya. We opted to use no matte paintings to give the film the most realistic feel we could. Characters were built with a simplified muscle and skin simulation setup for volume preservation and fat/jiggle with the Ziva FEM solver. Fur simulations were done with a combination of Yeti dynamics and a hair approach for more complex interactions.

The 2019 Dancing on Ice campaign has the second highest appeal and awareness of any ITV entertainment campaign, ever. Our Dancing on Ice promo helped launch the series as the most watched programme of the entire weekend across any TV channel – 6.4million and 31% share.