The “In-Your-Face” Magical Realness of Tesco’s 2023 Christmas Ad
British supermarkets do Christmas advertising in a big way these days. As a result, Tesco, the UK’s largest supermarket brand, has become one of the big players in the UK Christmas advert bonanza. And this year, they’ve delivered one that we won’t forget any time soon.
BBH London landed on an idea for the retailer about how we all have a different pace at which we ‘become more Christmas’. Some are ready from the start of November, while others have to have eaten dozens of mince pies, played Wham on repeat for days and done all of their present wrapping before that festive feeling really kicks in.
Brought to life by Iconoclast directing duo Alaska, the story centres on an emotional story of one teenage boy slowly finding his Christmassy-ness, while his father dives headlong into the seasonal spirit without encouragement. But there’s a strange magical realism element to the ad that brings some welcome levity to this emotional family tale – as the characters ‘become more Christmas’, they literally transform into Christmas trees, snowglobes or gingerbread people. All of these transformations were painstakingly made using costumes, props and in-camera special effects, giving the spot an analogue texture that helps the ad stand out from the rest.
Felipe Serradourada Guimaraes, BBH deputy executive creative director, James Rice, BBH managing partner and Alex Lovejoy, Black Kite creative director, tell LBB’s Alex Reeves about the months of decisions that made the campaign such a delight.
LBB> When did the first conversations around Tesco Christmas 2023 begin and what were they?
James> Tesco are always really good at this because they've got a whole team that works on Christmas 2024/2025 in the background while we're doing this year's.
They briefed us, as they always do. We got dressed in Christmas jumpers, and we gathered in the office in late winter / early spring. The big advantage we always have is that Tesco has such a clear north star in terms of helpfulness – what they can do to make themselves more helpful for customers. That's what makes Christmas briefs really interesting for us. They don't want to deviate or change from that – they want to stick to what they’re good at, which is providing value, rewards and quality to their customers and being as helpful as possible at Christmas. From our point of view, the brief was very clear and single minded from the get go.
Felipe> We set out very clearly as a team to try and do something tonally slightly different. So even though the client had a clear business problem, and this idea of frequency was where the business brief came from, we interpreted that strategically in terms of this idea of it's not just Christmas Day that we're going to go after – it's about the Christmas season.
That strategic direction of embracing Christmas from the minute Halloween decorations come down all the way to having Christmas dinner. How do we own that with one emotional bit of storytelling but also in-site? That's where we got to with the idea of Christmas spirit and the pace at which people get into it. It was a domino effect of a clear business problem and a clear idea from the clients of how that problem could be solved, then strategically linking that into how it looks in terms of owning your space, and then getting into a more creative bit of strategy. Then it was just a question of finding the right narrative to bring that all together.
These Christmas briefs can become daunting very quickly, not just in terms of ambition, but unlike other campaigns, you start hearing what other people are doing and then that gets into your head and you start figuring out whether you should gear shift or totally shift. It's a tricky time to navigate, but this one happened to go quite smoothly. And I think it's all credit to a massive collaboration and a good team that just happened to come together.
LBB> The bare bones of the idea is actually pretty straightforward – we all start to feel Christmassy at different times, but it builds up. Why was that important?
Felipe> It was purposefully orchestrated that way. Going back to how we set out in the ambition, it was about creating a bit of populist entertainment. Most of the time, that comes with a relatively universal insight that everyone's got a spin on. And that's where we ended up going. There's one thing, which is the Christmas spirit, driving this insight, but there's a bigger thing of how that manifests and the tension it creates between families. I see a lot of my relationship with my dad in that film. He is full Christmas from November 1st and I am Christmas an hour before I sit down for dinner. That whole dynamic was where we went. Whether you're a parent or you're a child, you'll hook into in different ways. And some people are both, which is quite nice. I'm oversimplifying, but that was the journey we went on. Big insightful thing to make it populist and how it manifests in a human way, which is a family dynamic and a relationship between father and son.
LBB> But also with a layer of weirdness in that people are physically literally turning into the embodiment of Christmas! How did that bizarre tone come about?
Felipe> That was just a bit of creative flair to be able to manifest that thing inside you. How do we visualise that? We wanted it to be so entertaining and potentially laugh out loud. We knew we needed a bit of a visual comedy direction. The landscape in the past had been very emotive. How do we make a gear change? So we decided to lean into something being a bit more in-your-face in terms of the comedy, the art direction, the storytelling, and thus the costumes. It's also partly why we went with someone like Alaska [to direct it]. They are super art-directionally heavy, but also they work well with performance, the way that they manipulate camera movements bring a sense of dynamism that we were also looking for.
So many conscious decisions were made for this film to have that pace and the in-your-face-ness. Different directors with different approaches could've depicted it maybe a bit more subtly and a bit more emotive. But we were like, “Nah, we want people to laugh.” They might cry at that bit in the car, but if they can leave with a smile, I think that's the most important.
James> Felipe and the creative teams working into him always had a very clear vision as an agency that we wanted this to be fun and entertaining, but it was finding an emotional story that unlocked that in a way that made it feel right for everyone. And it was really surprising when you got that script, how it just clicked for everybody because it hit all the ambitions that BBH had to make it Christmas, fun and entertaining for people, but it does tug at your heartstrings in the right way. And I think that was the magic of it and why I think it's turned out so well.
LBB> There’s also a realness to it. It’s magical and weird, but played perfectly straight. And so much of the transformations are clearly created in camera by the genius of Alaska and their crew. What decisions went into that aspect?
Felipe> Luckily we had a team that all had a super clear vision. Even before talking with our clients about this script, when we got to this idea, we knew the Tesco store needed to feel like a real place. When we got to this idea of becoming Christmas and the first iterations of the script, we all knew that it needed a degree of analogue nature – you needed to be able to touch it.
At the same time, I think that's why the guys at Black Kite did such a great job. There is that fine line between magic and realism that makes the film so special because even when his arm grows, the physicality of that is there, but it was sprinkled with a bit of VFX that makes it move. That was the perfect balance of how this needed to feel.
Massive shout out to Alaska. As a director duo they were incredible on set. Their dynamic with the DOP in terms of someone leaning into art-directionally how it played out, someone leaning into the performance a bit more. It was a very, very well oiled machine and a vision that really came to life the minute they joined the project. They were instrumental to what the film is now.
Alaska were the ones that brought that to life in their treatment. They were like, "Let's play to this being just a normal relationship - Dad just happens to be a tree." Those words rang so true to us because you could overplay it. Instead we just let the relationship and the narrative play out.
That truth and realness was something that continued when looking at making the first prosthetics and costumes. There was that fine line between fancy dress and it feeling too CG. The teams both from Iconoclast and Black Kite bringing it all together gave us that magic. I think it does really come through. Even decisions that we made to ensure that the grade wasn't overly colourful and there's a bit of grain – all of that adds to that sense of realism, which then makes the weirdness melt away. We're super pleased that that's how it came out.
LBB> Alex, from a VFX perspective, what was the key to making sure you preserved the realness that was created in camera with costumes and special effects?
Alex> Alaska are great. I've worked with them a couple of times. They're always really keen to try and achieve as much as they can practically, in camera. That means us then combining elements in passes.
I was lucky enough to be involved with the costume designs very early on. Going to the shop as well and looking at how they're progressing. Discussing with Alaska and the team how we were going to approach certain elements that we knew we certainly couldn't do as a costume. One of those is for the snowglobe character. We quickly discussed that we'd love to have the physical base of the snowglobe there for him to interact with and move around with, but we always knew that we were going to be adding the glass and the snowflakes.
Our job was really to help embellish what was captured in camera. And to give other areas of the costumes a little bit of help. Christmas pudding man – we gave him a little bit of love. We did part of that by taking stills of the actual Christmas puddings that we had on set.
Another little fun thing was the gingerbread legs. They were designed and then 3D printed at 50% of the actor's height. We did that knowing specifically that it would be easy on the day. We just moved the camera in as close, twice as high, to capture the correct perspective. Great to do so much practically.
Felipe> Sorry to ruin the illusion but it wasn't actual gingerbread.
Alex> One of the funnier moments is the very end scene where everybody's around the table. Filming that in a real house was great fun trying to squash everyone into the living room. No one else could walk past anyone, people couldn't get in the front door. Then of course, there's a little elf in there as well. Which we filmed separately, because we knew we're going to have to make him smaller to sit around the table.
Felipe> It was crucial for the whole narrative to feel like that it was people becoming things rather than people in costume. An important character for us was the wreath. The camera travels through her body and different shots were brought together to make that one camera move – from the cracker going up, to tracking her to going through to over the table to finding Dad. It's a smooth thing that brings us into the son at the party, but it's so crucial for making that film feel a bit surreal in the best way possible. We spent a lot of time not just making sure it was great but also debating whether that character existed because it's not often someone lets you fly through someone's stomach to reveal the next scene. It's a nuance but I think when you see it in the film, it does add that bit of magical realism that we love. And Alex and his team just smashed it in terms of bringing that all together because it was no mean feat – that was very complicated.
LBB> What have been the other moments that will stick in your memory from working on this unique project?
Felipe> For me, I remember probably 15 of us staring at a man dressed as a Christmas tree while debating where decorations go, whether the holly near his face is the right thing to have or whether the gingerbread man is too in the foreground. There was a bizarreness to it because everyone was so into it, having this very, very serious debate about hanging decorations on a Christmas tree that happened to be a man.
James> All the store shots. Tesco is amazing. They give us the stores at nighttime on weekends. It's amazing the amount of effort that Tesco put in. Stores’ doors shut on a Saturday or Sunday evening and an army of production company people and Tesco people come in and change all the point of sale to make it Christmassy. It's quite remarkable to see that many people going in and out.
The moment in the final edit that stands out for me is when the Clubcard is accepted at the till when his little all star pops up on his tree. You do it and you know that's funny, but actually when you see in the edit, it's a bit that consistently makes people laugh. That's great because obviously it calls back to the Clubcard campaign that we do throughout the year. It's just nice that it's a distinctly Tesco bit that makes people laugh every time and bears repeat viewing.
Felipe> It was one of those processes that stars align and everything happens for a reason. But originally it was gonna be shot very similar to Snowmum, where it's a match cut and the star is there. But then someone was like, "What if it was fishing wire?" So we got fishing wire and someone's pulling it out of the bag for this to come up and it's not pulling enough, it needs more but rebound. It was just a perfect mashup of improvisation with people that have done this for many, many years and know what they're talking about. And to James's point, it did come across as probably one of the funniest things that just happened to come together at 4am in the Tesco in Twickenham.
