Direct Line x Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - We're On It
Direct Line’s campaign featuring Harvey Keitel as his Pulp Fiction character Winston ‘The Wolf’ Wolf had been running with huge success for six years. But, Direct Line realised that a refreshed campaign was needed to focus on the future of the brand and build on the successes of their previous work. Direct Line wanted to focus on the speed of their customer service when responding to customer issues such as leaky pipes, broken down cars or stolen laptops.
Over the course of a few months, Born Licensing sourced and presented over 150 different movie, TV and cartoon characters known either for being problem solvers, for having high intelligence, or for being traditional superhero figures. As the creative team whittled down the list, we began engaging with the relevant Rights Holders to explore the feasibility of using their characters, by walking them through the initial creative direction and beginning negotiations of commercial terms, should their character be chosen.
Direct Line’s creative agency Saatchi & Saatchi reached out to Born Licensing with an incredibly strong creative direction, focusing on ‘We’re On It’ as a core theme. The goal was to showcase Direct Line as being so fast, so efficient and so reliable that they would beat even the most iconic hero characters to solve customer problems. Our role, as licensing experts, was to help them explore potential famous hero characters that could feature in the campaign.
After an extensive shortlisting process, Direct Line and Saatchi & Saatchi chose three final characters: Bumblebee from the Transformers franchise, Donatello from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and RoboCop. As Born Licensing are licensing agents for Hasbro (Rights Holders of the Transformers franchise), Viacom Nickolodeon (Rights Holders of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) and MGM (Rights Holders of RoboCop), we were able to negotiate the commercial terms of the licensing as well as manage all other aspects of the project from start to finish - without charging any clearance fees.
The campaign was shot in Cape Town, with Saatchi & Saatchi, Direct Line and Born Licensing’s David Born on hand to deal with any licensing issues throughout the shoot. Being so closely involved in the process allowed us to balance the client and Rights Holder interests effectively - and meant David had the opportunity for a quick photo with Donatello!
ViacomCBS, the Rights Holders of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, were closely involved in the development of the character and the campaign as a whole. For this character, most of the development took place in post-production, after the shoot had concluded. Prior to shooting, we, alongside ViacomCBS and Saatchi & Saatchi, established which era of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles universe the campaign’s character should be developed around. After discussing with all parties involved, we agreed to focus on the retro 1987 animated version of the Donatello character. Throughout the post-shoot CGI process, Born Licensing ensured that all stakeholders at ViacomCBS were reviewing and providing feedback at every stage. Working in such a way ensures that any concerns are identified early on, minimising any disruption to the overall project. Features such as Donatello’s face, shape, skin detail, colour, outfit, tools and even the voiceover artist were shared as early as possible with ViacomCBS and Born Licensing worked closely between the parties to tackle any issues.
The campaign launched in style, with a world-first ad break takeover across both TV and video-on-demand, covering ITV, Channel 4 and Sky simultaneously. Starting with a bespoke introduction for each channel, followed by one 60-second and two 30-second ads running in the same TV ad break, the campaign made its mark instantly. The launch moment alone reached 7.5 million people. Following the TV launch, the out of home material launched with 48 sheet posters and bus advertising.
After the success of the first spot fans were delighted to see Donatello return for a new 30-second spot for Direct Line. This time he was joined by his big brother Leonardo! Esteemed Director Bryan Buckley AKA ‘King of the Super Bowl’ also returned to the helm for yet another cinematic spot with our favourite heroes in a half shell. The film sees Donny stationed and primed for action in an underground lair, only to be disappointed at having another chance to rescue someone being taken away by Direct Line. The film launched in September 2021 on TV and digital.
