Mill Blog ♥

We help Müller stir a little bit of Wünder alongside TBWA London

10 October 2011

Where can you see our favourite Mr. Men, lovable picnic moocher Yogi Bear, 'sniggering hound' Muttley, and KITT, the talking car from the Knight Rider TV series, all in one place?

This ultimate collection of nostalgic pop-culture icons have been brought together for the first time by Müller, Britain's most popular yogurt and chilled pot dessert brand, to celebrate its new 'Wünderful Stuff' campaign, on which we collaborated alongside TBWA\London, Partizan and director Antoine Bardou-Jacquet.

Central to the company's biggest ever marketing push is a £20million integrated advertising campaign, which launched on Saturday night during the first round of this year's The X Factor live finals on ITV1. The epic, 90-second commercial aired simultaneously across 50 channels, including the coveted slot during Britain's biggest entertainment show. Central to the campaign is the idea of "stirring a little bit of Wünder" into everyday life.

The commercial features a host of much-loved famous characters transforming a dull, grey cityscape into a vibrant world of bright colours, rainbows and unicorns.

The Mill's team of VFX artists, led by Richard de Carteret (2D) and Dave Fleet (3D), were responsible for not only ensuring the iconic stars and all the other CG elements were seamlessly integrated into the spot, but also for creating all other CG elements.  These including everything from the colourful rainbows and swirling clouds, to the set extensions, unicorns, wrecking ball and crane, flying fruit pieces as well as the mechanical Müller robot and the transforming van.

Richard de Carteret, our lead 2D explains: "As the narrative of the spot called for KITT and the robot / Yogi bear scene to appear overcast and grey we had to re-light each plate before any CG or cartoon characters could be composited. This meant painting out all strong shadows and flattening and / or grading any strong source of light. There was also extensive clean-up of fire escapes and signage followed by the integration of matte paintings which were used to augment the skyline and re-shape the city. Every single shot had been re-worked and some, like the demolition sequence, had been created from only a few stills taken on location. Once all plates were created, extensive compositing of the CG elements took place. We introduced a lot of animated detail and atmospherics as well as creating the graphic dash-board of KITT."

The biggest challenge faced by our VFX team was the integration of the cartoon characters into each scene, especially the "splat" sequence.  Richard continues, "Each character had to still feel cartoon and graphic-like, whilst actually be part of the shot.  The splat shots consisted of a live action plate, real fruit shot at high speed against blue screen and of course, the 2D cell animation. The animators, after taking our timings and position of each character, created a very clever morph which literally unfolded each figure into the shot. This helped us create a seamless transition from bureaucrat to Mr Man."

The 'Wünderful Stuff' multi-media campaign will air from 8^th October and incorporates television, video on-demand, outdoor, online, print, cinema, social media and point-of-sale advertising. Creative build billboards will see the characters come to life across prime locations such as London's Cromwell Road, the busiest road in Europe, and the full 90-second commercial will be rolled out across some of the biggest films of the year.

"The aim of the 'Wünderful Stuff' campaign is to get consumers to sit up and take notice", says Lee Rolston, Marketing Director at Müller Dairy. "Over the years we have continued to stir in an imaginative mix of ingredients to turn a product which was seen as plain and ordinary into something which is fun and delicious.

"That's exactly what the 'Wünderful Stuff' campaign sets out to do. It captures the essence of the Müller brand which is essentially all about the enjoyment and fun of a great-tasting product."

Dedé Laurentino, Executive Creative Director at TBWA\London, added: "I think it's great that a brand should remind us to stir a bit of wonder in our days, and beat the mundane out of our lives. Such a mission needs to reach as many people as we can -- and talk to their heart. It's a rallying cry. It has to be truly wünderful."