Will Ferrell, who’s Buddy the Elf character recently featured in Asda’s Christmas ad, has said that the reprise of his role has helped him “finally get paid market value”.
In an interview with Yahoo Entertainment UK about his new upcoming film ‘Spirited’, the actor was asked what he thought of the supermarket’s VFX commercial.
Ferrell replied: “Well… it kind of helped me finally get paid market value for when I shot Elf.”
He added: “No, I thought it was well done.”
When asked if he would ever make a sequel film the actor said: “No, I think that would look strange – a 55-year-old man running around in tights.
“Yeah, I think Elf is its own entity.”
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The news comes a day after it was announced that John Lewis’ ‘The Beginner’ Christmas ad had received 227 million more impressions for its spot on Twitter than Asda’s, amassing 140 million impressions to John Lewis’ 367 million.
While the chain’s festive ad may be second best, Asda senior director of brand communications Stephi Brett-Lee told Marketing Beat that she 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,” she added.
“The whole team loved working on it, and we knew we’d created something special, but to get that recognition from our customers, the media, and industry experts has been the icing on the cake. We hit 1m YouTube views in just over 24 hours and are now sitting at just over 2m (11 November 2022) views, which is fantastic.”
Asda has also recently given fans of its Buddy the Elf Christmas ad a behind-the-scenes look at how the supermarket’s campaign was made.
The ‘Making Of’ film features interviews from the production team and unseen behind the scenes footage, unpacking 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.
Director of the ad, Danny Kleinman added: “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.
“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.”
