Moneysupermarket x Skeletor and He-Man - Epic

MoneySuperMarket’s Epic campaigns have been running since 2011. Focused around the ‘epic’ feeling customers get when they save money through the price comparison site. The campaigns had been hugely successful and engaging, with campaigns featuring Snoop Dogg and the now-famous Dave the twerking businessman. Their 2016 campaign, with ‘squads, strutters and builders’ was named the most memorable ad of the year in the UK. This past success meant the bar was set very high, and for that reason there was a keen desire to continue the ‘epic’ theme, but to take the campaign to new heights by incorporating well-known and iconic characters.

MoneySuperMarket’s creative agency, Mother London, reached out to us with a number of different scripts they were interested in producing, featuring famous characters. Armed with their list, Born Licensing began exploring the feasibility of each suggested character in order for Mother London and MoneySuperMarket to decide the final direction to take the campaign in.

Despite having a large number of potential characters to explore, Born Licensing’s global connections and existing relationships with all major Rights Holders made the exploration of feasibility simple. Some Rights Holders can take up to 4 weeks to review scripts, simply due to the volume of requests they receive, but thanks to our close relationships with the right people, we were able to get initial feedback on feasibility within days. Once the list had been reviewed and shortlisted, Mother London and MoneySuperMarket made the decision to choose the Masters of the Universe characters, Skeletor and He-Man for their final script.

Having already engaged with Mattel, the Rights Holders for Masters of the Universe, to explore initial feasibility, we were able to quickly negotiate commercial licensing terms to start the project. Born Licensing’s David Born attended the stills shoot in London, being on site to handle any licensing-related questions throughout the process (and sneak in a quick photo with Skeletor and He-Man, too!). All material and creative production was shared with Mattel at every stage of the process, to ensure they were comfortable with the direction being taken. A lot of time was spent on the development of the costumes and props, which were developed based on style guides and had to be as near to original as possible. Born Licensing acted as the communicator between the client and the Rights Holder to handle any issues as they arose.

The 60-second campaign launched to a hugely positive industry and consumer response. It was named Ad of the Day by Adweek, Ad of the Week by Campaign and was winner at the Campaign Big Awards. It was the number one highest-scoring individual commercial in 2017 by Adwatch and was considered by Millward Brown to be within the top 2% of the most engaging ads ever recorded.