Grab Our Lovely Nuts: Syncbubble Scores Cheeky Planters Campaign

Tasty nuts are up for grabs in the latest tongue-in-cheek Planters campaign, which Syncbubble delivered an equally cheeky score for. In this latest film, chirpy animated kernels are on a mission to deliver an important public announcement and offer up their scrumptiously wholesome nuts.

Explaining the project, Simon Elms, Co-Founder of Syncbubble, says: “Anybody who knows me knows that, when it comes to creating music for adverts, I believe in solid methodology [snore] – that is; making sure that ducks are in rows, musical function is noted and is high on the agenda, that personal bias is understood and, importantly, that the clients are involved and their input noted. Sounds boring but it works. Then a job like Planters pops along and all those theories go to shit. 

“I took the brief. Colin and myself wrote four songs. They were funny, despite the client legislating lyrics that weren’t particularly conducive to good song writing. We were happy. We presented them to Toby, Sara and William from CHI. They looked slightly uncomfortable - not a good sign - and then mentioned that one of the directors, The Bobbsey Twins from Blink, had written his own song and that they really liked it. Jessica, Hogarth’s producer, and myself exchanged nervous glances. An iPhone was produced - not the best platform to present demos - and said demo was played. And there it was; a solo voice with no accompaniment what so ever that sounded like it had been recorded in a toilet… the lyrics off brief - lewd even. But it was good. Really good! More importantly, it was funny. So, we binned all our demos, took their track, added an orchestra, added some backing vocals, and rerecorded Tim properly. The rest is history. The agency loved it, the directors loved it, Hogarth loved it, we all loved it and, most importantly, the clients loved it. Job done.”

So, what’s the moral of this tale?

Simon adds: “For me, it’s letting talent loose - something else I always bore on about. Throw off the shackles of agenda. We can brief and direct all day long but sometimes we should just let talented people do what they do. So much of my life has been about second guessing what I think will win a pitch, rather than writing something that I think is good. And therein lies the rub. Why do we all over direct? If you choose to work with someone because they’ve produced great work, why not just present them with what you’re trying to achieve and then ask them what they think. Luckily, on this occasion, that was exactly what CHI did.

“Grab Our Lovely Nuts is funny. For us Brits brought up on a diet of Carry On films, it will always be funny. Somewhere up in heaven Sid James will be guffawing with both thumbs pointing to the sky. We need to see more of these kinds of ads.”