Asda has given fans of its Buddy the Elf Christmas ad a behind-the-scenes look at how the supermarket’s campaign was made.
On 4 November, Asda released its show-stopping festive commercial which saw Will Ferrell’s Elf character become a Christmas temp for an unsuspecting local store.
Amassing over 2 million views on YouTube, Asda’s senior director of brand communications Stephi Brett-Lee recently told Marketing Beat that Asda is “over the moon with the success of the campaign so far”.
“It’s doing exactly what we wanted it to do, which is make people smile,” Brett-Lee said.
Alongside the acclaim the ad has received online, according to Asda “thousands of excited and curious fans” have taken to social media to ask how the chain managed to bring Buddy the Elf back to screens 19 years after the original Christmas film was released.
Featuring interviews from the production team and unseen behind the scenes footage, Asda’s new ‘making of’ film unpacks just how Asda set about the task of integrating original footage with newly shot scenes to place Buddy’s beloved character at the heart of a modern-day ad that sees the elf wreak havoc as a Christmas temp.
The video explains how director Danny Kleinman brought the ad to life through state-of-the-art, first-of-its-kind VFX, converting old footage into an all-new production which has reportedly ‘never been done on this scale before’.
During production, detailed ‘rotoscoping’ work was applied to cut Buddy out of the original film background, while a digital Asda store was created by scanning a real, bricks-and-mortar location, allowing the creative team to scout their locations virtually and relative to Buddy’s existing performance.
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“For me this was a unique challenge, working with an A list Hollywood actor, without him being there in person, and crafting other actors around his iconic performance,” Kleinman said.
“It was important not only to make the action seamless but also convincingly transport him to a Christmas Asda store, creating a Hollywood feel to Asda’s Christmas celebrations.”
During filming, an on-set body double was also used for ‘eyeline reference’ and to provide ‘nuanced’ shadows and interactions which could be incorporated into the final ad.
Asda acting chief customer officer, Sam Dickson, added: “Given Elf is the UK’s favourite festive film, we were determined to remain faithful to its Christmas-loving spirit and do justice to the wonderful, wide-eyed character that is Buddy. It was a creative and technical challenge for everyone involved but we knew we needed to create something even more special this year to help spread some much-needed cheer and we’re delighted with the outcome.”
