A Young Wizard Casts a Almighty Spell to Showcase the Magic of Sky Glass

Today, in partnership with Sky Creative, Sky’s in-house advertising and creative agency and the largest in-house agency in Europe, AKQA launches the ‘Wizard’ phase of Sky Glass, Sky’s biggest ever marketing campaign.

As part of this bold new product launch, AKQA created multiple TVCs, directed by Partizan’s Michael Gracey of the Greatest Showman feature film, as well radio spots featuring Helena Bonham Carter and OOH adverts realised by photographer Alex Telfer. The campaign celebrates the magic of Sky Glass, the streaming TV from Sky that is redefining the future of television. 

AKQA’s concept for Sky’s first-ever campaign intertwining creative and performance marketing began with the notion from Arthur C. Clark, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” That sentiment reflects Sky’s latest innovation as it extends its product offering, allowing customers to stream TV directly through Sky Glass, providing the total integration of hardware, software and content.

The hero story is unveiled through the eyes of a young wizard, and his trusty apprentice. Their adventures span across an array of films which untap and uncover the magic within Sky Glass. The stories capture the relationship between imagination and ingenuity, highlighting key features such as Ultra HD and Quantum Dot technology producing over 1 billion colours and 360° Dolby Atmos® sound.

“The hardest day in any child’s life is the day they learn the word impossible,” says Michael Gracey, director at Partizan. The stories captured through the campaign show what happens when imagination and possibility run free. A TV experience like no other, Sky Glass simply must be made of magic. 

Michael continues: ”I loved the concept of a little kid who believed he was magic, and loved that he could solve his problem by putting it all in a cauldron and magicking up an entirely new product.

“And so as a conceit it was something I thought had a very clear problem and solution.

“What I thought worked really well creatively was my process, sketching out the commercial in video form in the rehearsal process, allowing both the agency and the client to weigh in with their ideas.

“On this series of spots that worked particularly well as everything was additive. The agency had lived with this campaign for a while and their thoughts elevated the idea throughout, and then the client not only had great thoughts and understanding of the product, they also communicated them really effectively to me as the director which then allowed me to really fall in love with what we were advertising, which isn’t always the case.” 

Sunny Bhurji, marketing director at Sky, said: “Sky Glass has been designed to be the smartest TV in the market. The Wizard phase of the campaign aims to uncover the magic of some of the incredible Sky Glass product features, which shows consumers why it is a TV experience like no other. We knew that we would need the best creative agencies and a director with a strong vision that could elevate these features into immersive brand stories.”

Jade Tomlin, group creative director at AKQA said: “The vision was to bring life and magic to television. We knew this charming magician needed a heavy-weight Director like Michael to elevate the magic we were building narratively. The Wizard campaign shows magic back into the heart of our homes.”