Project 2 Advertisement

 Project 2 Advertisement

For my second project I was tasked with creating my own advert for either a fictional product, an existing product, or to recreate an existing advert. To start I fist studied and understood the meaning of an advert. Adverts also known as advertisements are the practice and technique employed to bring attention to a product or service. This can be achieved in many different ways for example. Printed ads, TV ads, Radio ads, Outdoor ads, and Direct mail ads. The method I will use for my personal advertisement is a video ad. My advert would be recorded and published either on television or though a method of digital marketing to reach a specific audience. 

To create my advert, I must first develop a basic idea so that I can investigate similar adverts and develop a specific target audience for my ad. During my brief my tutor presented to me the Bear and the Hare 2013 John Lewis Christmas advert. This inspired me to create a Christmas advert that uses stock motion animation. I wanted to experiment with stock motion animation because:

• The technique has always interested me
• I didn't want to use actors 
• I am a fan of classic stock motion movies
• It seemed like a fun challenge 
• I found the idea of creating props fun
• I thought that the stock motion animation style would suit a Christmas ad
• Id tried stock motion at a very young age 

Now that i had a few basic ideas for a Christmas ad. I decided to look into other adverts with Christmas themes. These ads were:

 Tesco Christmas Advert 2025 | That's What Makes It Christmas,

 Traffic Jamming | M&S Food Christmas Advert 2025,

 Coca-Cola Holidays Are Coming 2020, 

John Lewis Christmas Advert 2014 MontyThePenguin,

Guinness Christmas Ad,

The Story of Lidl Bear’ Christmas TV Advert | Lidl GB.

Braehead Shopping centre | Christvertmas 2022 | TV ad

Here are some similarities and features I noted from these ads

Family themes

Families are an important at Christmas as it is the event that brings all families together for a celebration. this is why in many Christmas ads you may see a happy family to advertise a perfect Christmas. I noticed these themes in the  Tesco Christmas Advert 2025 | That's What Makes It Christmas. Where you can see the lives of many different families at Christmas.

Wholesome narrative

Christmas ads often follow a wholesome narrative. This is because the brands are trying to advertise a product that will bring the consumer joy. For example the idea of a young boy following a Coca-Cola Christmas truck, all the way to a town gathering is a sweet yet engaging narrative. That is themed around the actual product that the advert is trying to sell.

Humour

A way to make a Christmas add engaging and memorable is to add bits of humour to entertain the audience. A great example of this would be in the  Traffic Jamming | M&S Food Christmas Advert 2025. Where comedian Dawn French. Is seen in a comical traffic jam where she appears to lead a swarm of people to an M and S truck where they all take in the Christmas spirit. This add is memorable due to its humour which will hopefully leave the product in the viewers mind. 

Relatable Christmas moments

Having a relatable Christmas moment in an advert will remind people of Christmas. And can create  layer of nostalgia and repeatability. This is best seen in the Tesco Christmas Advert 2025 | That's What Makes It Christmas ad. Where the characters are seen arguing over a common Christmas game, this is a relatable moment that has been exaggerated to create humour.

Animals/cute characters/mascot

Since Christmas ads are usually aimed towards families, which include young children it is always a good idea to try incorporate some sort of cute character, animal, or mascot into your Christmas ad as this will entertain the younger members of the audience. This may also work for older viewers as seeing a mascot for a product will draw a connection between the ad and the brand. Great examples of this would be the Guinness Christmas and the The Story of Lidl Bear’ Christmas TV Advert | Lidl GB

Colour themes

Christmas ads seem to include a colour palette

that is associated with Christmas. this palette seems

to include many dark reds dark greens and a few other

colours in between. The colours are there to remind you

of Christmas with the Dark Green trees and the classic

Dark Red Christmas presents. The colours in these ads

creates a unique style that is recognizable and immediately

linked to Christmas.

Here are some examples:

Brand colors

Along with Christmas colours a brands signature colour will work perfectly in a Christmas add. Just like in the  Coca-Cola Holidays Are Coming 2020 ad. Where they show off their signature bright red branding. This technique is usually used with big brands with probably the most iconic version of this technique being used in the Cadbury's Gorilla Advert Aug 31st 2007 . Where the use of the companies signature purple is seen.

Brand slogan

Slogans are extremely common in these ads. They are a short memorable phrase used to promote the product. This is seen in almost every Christmas add or just ads in general. some examples from the ads i researched would be:  

• "Christmas isn't perfect but that's what makes it Christmas"
• "This is not just food this is M and S Christmas food"
• "Give something back this Christmas"
• "Give someone the Christmas they've been dreaming of"
• "Even at the home of the black stuff they dream of a white one"
• "Now that's a Christmas you can believe in"
• "Its all the Christmas you want"

Having a slogan for an ad seems to be necessary and if it is able to be linked to the advert that makes it even better. 

Call to action

This is similar to a slogan but it is more of a command. It guides the audience towards purchasing the product. And is often followed up by details describing where it is to be purchased. The Braehead Shopping centre | Christvertmas 2022 | TV ad does this very well. With quotes such as "shut your laptops" "pocket those phones" "its right here at Braehead".   

Christmas aesthetic

This is an obvious one but one of the most important points. A Christmas ad must look Christmassy whether that's with the use of Christmas lights a Christmas tree or tinsel. There must be some aspect of the Christmas aesthetic. Otherwise it just feels like a regular advert. 

A mix of warm and cold lighting

Lastly, the use of both warm lighting and cold lighting is used a lot during Christmas ads. As cold lighting can be used to create a cold snowy look when a character is outside. While warm lighting can create a warm cosy look that reminds the audience of a nice warm fire on a snowy Christmas night. This can help a lot with the aesthetic and is used very commonly in Christmas ads.

Jolly Christmas Music

The music in Christmas songs are often either jolly and cheery like in the Coca-Cola Holidays Are Coming 2020. Or deep and emotional like in the John Lewis Christmas Advert 2014 MontyThePenguin.

Or sometimes Christmas ads will take a normal song and slow it down in order to make it emotional. Either way for my Christmas ad i will have to use royalty free Christmas music to avoid copy write. My music must link to the advert itself

DEVELOPING MY IDEA

Now that I had a better understanding of Christmas ads. I decided to brain storm some ideas for my animation. I wanted a family of Christmassy characters as influenced to me by the Christmas ads id researched, but at the same time I needed to make sure these characters were simple enough to create and animate. As I had little experience and not a lot of time to produce a stock motion video. With this in mind I decided to develop some concept art for the characters I wanted to make.

Christmas trees

My first character concepts were a family of Christmas trees. They'd have easy to animate features like a mini star along with movable eyes. However I decided that this idea was too complicated to make. As I had no idea how to make prop trees  

Elf's

My second idea was a family of elf's. I found this idea a little boring though, and also felt as if it was to similar to an elf on the shelf which may be copyrighted.

Nut crackers

The next idea was to have a family of Nut crackers. But the characters wouldn't have enough features too animate.

Penguin

Another idea was to have a family of penguins inspired by the John Lewis 2014 Christmas Advert. I did not have a model penguin though yet I was a big fan of this idea.

Sprouts

This idea was influenced to me by a Christmas gift I had seen. The idea was to have a family of sprouts that would roll around. I thought this would add more humour to the advert. But decided against it as animating it would be too difficult. 

Presents

For my final idea (and my most successful) I decided to create a family of Christmas Presents. These were easy to create as I only needed boxes and wrapping paper. As well as being easy to animate due to their stiff movements. And movable eyes which I took from my Christmas tree idea. 

Now that I had found an idea I liked i decided to develop it further, By Creating a Story board. I wanted to give my advert a straightforward narrative based on the adverts I had researched. So i began developing a simple story, About a present coming to life with his family; The presents would then be seen doing sweet dances that would aim to stay in the audiences head. The goal for this Christmas add is to get people talking about it. By making it a wholesome stock motion animation that warms audiences hearts. The viewers are more likely to share the add with their friends and families. This advert is also very easily marketable, since this is an add for a shop the marketing team could hide the characters I have created around their locations offering a discount to whoever finds them. This would get more people to visit the shop whilst also getting people to talk about the promotion.

Here is an image of the story board I created on a Miro. 

Now that I had a basic idea I decided it would be beneficial to try and identify any flaws in my idea. I listed each problem, then came up with a solution for each issue.

Problem

The movement is a little too bulky. the characters only have 2 things they can move. That being their body and arms.

Solution

Create arms that are movable with draw pins. Then stick each arm to a present:

Problem

• The characters lacked individuality. They all looked to similar and boring.

Solution

• Add variation to each character by changing their height, width, shape, Arms, wrapping paper, and eyes. here are the new designs i created:

Problem

How will I ensure that I have enough time to do everything I need too.

Solution

Create a schedule to better organize my time:

• Wednesday: Plan​ 
• Thursday: create props and set​ 
• Friday: animate ​ 
• Saturday/Sunday: gather sounds​ 
• Monday: edit and polish up any animating

Production

My idea was now looking promising, but first I thought it may be a good idea to have some quick practice with animating to try and get a good first impression on what its like. So at the end of Wednesday I decided to test out stock motion, and created a very very rough test animation. Using Dragon Frame.

What i learnt

• Stock motion is quite fun and relaxing
• Stock motion takes time 
• Natural light has a big effect on my animation
• The more pictures I take of an animation the longer it will be 
• I enjoy shooting at 12 fps as it provides a mix of choppy and smooth animation
• Even just the reflection of my clothes will have an effect of my animation

After my test footage, I decided to watch a videos on stock motion animation to get an even better understanding. Here is the videos I watched:

It was now time to start creating my characters and set. I first selected 3 boxes that matched the characters I had made. I gathered these from my dads work and an old Christmas lights box.

I then gathered some Christmas lights and made a test set in my bedroom.

I then cut out faces and arms to go on each present.

However while creating the arms i realized that there was a slight issue with my design. Since the arms would move with pins nothing would keep them from moving down on there own. Here is a video demonstrating the issue.

To resolve this I simply folded 2 tiny bits of paper and stuck them to the other side of the pin as shown here.

After this my project was ready to be filmed. The next day I use a cannon Eos 600d camera and a basic light that was set to the warm setting to create a cosy aesthetic as seen in the adverts I have researched. Along with this I set up the Christmas lights I had tested and also prepared some tinsel to be animated onto the shot.

 

While setting up my project I realized that there was a slight issue with my lighting. The light from the studio window would shine in onto my set. When light changes during a stock motion animation it creates an unappealing flicker effect. In order to resolve this I decided to place foam mats across the window to block the light from entering (there was no blind). Here is an image of one of my class mates helping me apply the floor mats.

Once the light was blocked and the lighting was ready I set up Dragon Frame to begin animating. Before I could start though I needed to adjust some settings that would drastically improve my lighting.

My Opening Scene

Now that everything was set I began animating. The animation process was fun yet time consuming. And by the end of my day I had only produced 34 seconds of footage. To try and increase the length of my ads beginning I decided to add a scene that was shot without animation. This was inspired by the Apple Fuzzy Feeling advert that uses a blend of realism and stock motion animation to enhance the adverts narrative. My added scene would be of me applying a festive bow to my present just before they come to life. Here is the footage I created.  

I was fairly pleased with the result but thought it could do with some improvements. I presented my work to my tutor for feedback and while he was very complimentary of my work he gave me some extremely helpful advice on how to improve my advert. He explained that while my animation is good especially for my first time trying it out. The video does not feel like an engaging advert. He explained how adverts are typically more fast paced as an avert is trying to keep the viewers attention span. My animation felt more like a short story then an advert. It was full of too many unnecessary moments that were to hard to follow, such s the presents fainting, and the extra scene that was added to the start. My tutor told me that the most entertaining part of my ad was the eyes and arms forming on the middle present. With in mind I decided to reanimate the opening scene some point in the future, and add less wiggling and moving around. My new opening would aim to get straight to the eyes forming scene, to keep the viewers attention and engagement. To avoid this issue happening in the future I will make sure to ask my tutor for feedback on my story board before I film it.    

Second scene  

I decided to revisit the opening scene another day and make a start on the second scene. This was more successful as I had more practice with stock motion animation. I placed the normal sized present on the box that contained the Christmas lights as you could not initially see all 3 of the gifts at the same time.  while I was setting up the set I decided to add a 4th character that being the bag of twine. While I do think that this character is a unique addition to the project many people, I showed the video too couldn't tell what he was. During the creation of my second scene I began to run into a few problems.

Problem 1

I wanted the characters to be more emotive, having them lean back and jump up and down. To solve this issue I taped the characters to the back wall to hold them up while they leaned back. This worked well and I adjusted the length of the tape for each frame. I also put small things under the characters to keep them steady. Things such as, scissors, blue tack, pencils, pens, and paper. since these were only seen for a split second they felt natural and unnoticeable. Here are some images of this technique being used. 

Problem 2 

In the final scene where the presents climb on top of each other. The tape holding each present would constantly break leaving the characters in the wrong position for when I had to take a picture. to resolve this i used my hand in to keep the presents from falling. I hid my hand off screen and got someone else to take the photo. Here is the scene where I used my hand to hold up the present.

Problem 3

While filming the eye of the middle present would keep falling off. the solution to this issue was to simply add more blue tack. But it ended up benefiting my animation as it gave me the idea to add a comical scene where the middle characters eye falls off and he has to pick it up. 

editing

Now that my filming for the second scene was finished. I re-watched the footage and was more pleased with the result. I went over the advert with my tutor and he agreed that the second scene worked well. It was then time for me to re shoot my opening scene. Here is an image of my set after my final shot.

once the last shot was finished my props were looking run down. This gave me the idea to give the opening shot a slight horror aspect by placing the torn up presents around the middle present as he formed. I also changed the warm lighting to an unnatural hard white light. Here's an image of my props once the second scene was finished. 

Unfortunately I ran into an issue while exporting my footage which left my ad with really bad lighting. I decided to try and fix this issue in the editing. Here is a video on how I did it.

Once id finished fixing my issue, I added my sounds and music. The music was a very important part of my ad because I really wanted to find the perfect one. I eventually found a great song on Pixabay and added it to my footage using premier. I then spent hours searching for sounds and noises. To add to my film. I wanted to add some high pitch voices to my characters, so I had to use the pitch shifter tool. Here is a video on how I used it. 

Now that editing was finished my project was complete. Overall I thought this advert was a success and I really enjoyed using stock motion. The opening scene is a big improvement over the first one and the call to action I added at the end does a good job at getting the message across. However, if I could improve anything I would:

• Add a voice over (this was initially planned)
• Improve animation quality
• Make a better set 
• Remove the people moving around in the studio (I tried to hide it as best I could)
• Improve the junky lighting
• Move the camera further back at the end because you cant see all the characters
• Add more of the brands colours

The project still went well, and I am still happy with the result. Here is my final video.