How Feed Me Light Brought Santa's House to Life for Dobbies
For their Christmas campaign, the Scottish garden centre chain Dobbies is looking to set itself up as a destination to buy Christmas decorations and gifts alike. In order to achieve this, the animation studio Feed Me Light was tasked with a whimsical project - bringing Santa's home and workshop to life.
To explain more, Feed Me Light's Ryan Goodwin-Smith is taking us behind the scenes of Dobbies' festive campaign.
The Brief
Axis Studios and Leith Agency asked us to bring the latest Dobbies Christmas spot to life for the Scottish garden centre chain. This year, Dobbie the Reindeer is treating Santa to a Christmas surprise of his own with the help of some trusted elf friends. We worked closely with Leiths to stay true to this existing and much-loved campaign while improving the overall look of the world from previous years.
The Characters
Working with existing brand characters requires a trusted pair of hands. We carefully improved Santa's and Dobbie's design while introducing all the elves to populate the workshop and help Santa have a well earned break.
The World & Santa's House
We spent time a good deal of time on the conveyor belt of gifts and moving into Santa’s house sooner than was originally scripted to showcase all the products. We felt the client struck a good balance with this element, resisting the temptation to be overtly literal in signposting actual products and prices, instead emphasising the story of kindness and helpfulness which seems to be connecting with people.
Personally I think it’s brave when brands do this and Leiths, no doubt, played their part well in that regard. Especially when one expects the full 21-gun salute from the Big Advertisers this time of year, it can be a real challenge to cut through that noise. And as an animation company, we obviously prefer it when the narrative and characters get to do the heavy lifting of messaging, so we’re really pleased at the response this spot is getting and proud of how well it looks, too.
