Aardman's Soft Spot for Urbanara

 Aardman Animations have partnered with BBDO Proximity to create a stunning new ad for URBANARA, a European online homewares brand who’s ethos is to provide high-quality items for the home, without the sky-high price tag.

 

URBANARA sources beautiful homewares from around the world, directly from the people who make them. By cutting out additional costs, such as wholesaler margins, warehousing and expensive high street shops that traditional retailers add on, URBANARA delivers high quality home textiles and accessories, at their real price, direct to consumers.

 

Since its launch in 2011 the online start-up has grown exponentially and the company is looking to share this with even more consumers around the world by creating a TV Commercial with Aardman and BBDO Proximity Duesseldorf.

 

"At URBANARA, our emphasis is on high quality products, made with love. We were delighted to work with Aardman and BBDO, who share our ideals and were able to translate these values into our first TV campaign..” says Benjamin Esser, CEO and founder of Urbanara."We are confident that this campaign will lead to an expansion of our loyal and growing customer base, and will strengthen our position in the European homewares market." 

 

In the 20 second commercial, a small cotton ball sets out on a journey through an extravagant world, which is made entirely of beautiful fabric. It travels through a winter wonderland made of luxurious white fabrics, crosses a glistening river, plunges down a waterfall until it arrives at its final destination, a bedroom. The message: URBANARA brings you high quality and handpicked products from all around the world at affordable prices.

 

The biggest challenge was in recreating the imaginative and detailed landscape. Everything from the smallest bush to the tallest mountain is merely made of URBANARA products.  The creative team at Aardman experimented constantly with the products; changing material, colours, shapes and textures until the right balance of simplicity and detail was found. 

 

Aardman director Daniel Cohen, was immediately taken with the concept; “Creating imaginary worlds always interests me, so this script was particularly appealing.  I wanted each landscape to look completely different so it felt the cotton ball really experienced a journey.  The cotton ball was its own character so in each scene it moves a different way - whether being blown along in the winter wonderland or rolling down a hill in Scandinavia.  The project was a great pleasure to work on and the team around me were wonderful.” 

The commercial will be online and on air from November 25th - broadcast on Sat.1, Pro7 and Kabel 1.  It will be accompanied by a strong banner campaign, which also originates from BBDO Proximity.