Firefly Brings His Shine to the City in Heartwarming Film for Bradesco Bank

A New Year's Eve that stresses social inclusion and respect for differences is the essence of Brazilian bank Bradesco's end-of-the-year campaign, which is built around a two-and-a-half-minute 3D animation launched on YouTube. Created by Publicis Brazil and produced by Zombie Studios (represented in the UK and Europe by BLINKINK), the short film is about the saga of a character who moves from the countryside to the city and faces a number of challenges to feel welcomed.

"We chose to use another aesthetic repertoire, different from those traditionally used in end-of-the-year campaigns. The film portrays an extremely emotional metaphor about inclusion and diversity. The narrative translates the feelings common to those who face new challenges in search for their own space, their own spark," stated Marcio Parizotto, marketing director for Bradesco.

Departing from the '2019. You Make It Happen' concept, the production is about a firefly leaving the countryside, where it glowed, and moving to the big city. When he gets there, amidst the many lights, he no longer stands-out and goes unnoticed by people. That is, until there is a blackout in town just when the lights of a Christmas tree would spark-up. The firefly then joins others to make it sparkle and brighten up the holiday celebrations.

"The production was developed aiming to enchant people, and, above all, to provide an inspirational end-of-the-year message with typical Brazilian ingredients," says Parizotto.

The 3D animation shows a mass celebration on the street with 20 characters that reflect the diversity of the Brazilian people. The scenarios are inspired on Brazilian locations. The soundtrack is performed by drag queen Gloria Groove, stage name of Daniel Garcia, who has over 111 million views on YouTube. Gloria was specially invited to perform and record the song Beautiful, by Christina Aguilera, encouraging everyone to be who they are.

Over 100 people were involved in the short film's production. Many are Brazilians who live abroad and have worked for major animation studios such as Disney and Sony. The time between the conception of the campaign and its launch was approximately three months - 13 weeks dedicated exclusively to the production of the film.

"We wanted to launch an exciting and inspiring campaign that would allow people to identify with the end-of-the-year moment in a truly Brazilian way: with elements of our culture, architecture and characters based on the beautiful richness and diversity of our people," says Domênico Massareto, CCO for Publicis.

The Bradesco movie will be streamed on YouTube using Blast strategy to reach the largest number of people on Google platforms in the shortest period of time. The campaign will be the first to benefit from Blast Room, a room specially designed by Google to monitor real-time Blasts results from customers.

"We are very proud to launch such a beautiful and magnificent campaign on YouTube, while opening our Blast Room in São Paulo," stated Mônica de Carvalho, Google Brazil's business director. "Bradesco has been working with YouTube consistently and this end-of-the-year campaign is the golden closing to 2018."

The campaign will also have materials for the POS, out of home, digital, radio spots and print media.