The Recipe for the Perfect Gift

Want to captivate the nation this Christmas?

This year, instead of delivering a Christmas ad, we served up a mini romcom. An ambitious idea but with the right ingredients we turned a brief into the Perfect Gift. Here’s how you can make your own:

First up you’re going to need a romcom worthy script, crafted over hours. For best results allow creatives to marinate in romcoms before starting to write, this will lead to a story with all the ingredients of a classic RomCom - the meet cute, the moment of crisis, the revelation.

Once you have your script it’s time to bring it to life. For this you’ll need a cast. We went with Kiera Knightley, a British classic chockfull of cultural capital. And for a twist we paired her with bearded, slightly awkward British Comedian, Joe Wilkinson.

At the same time, you’re going to introduce a director, we went for award winning director Molly Manners who has an unhealthy obsession for British romcoms and a knack for making us feel all the feels, as seen in her adaptation of ‘One Day’.

Now you mustn’t forget the wardrobe, you’re going to need long oversized scarves and quintessentially British coats to make this campaign feel like the real thing.

We found adding a '90s track from James really added to the romcom feels so make sure you add that where needed.

Once you have your brand ad you’re going to want to let that sit for 4 minutes, it may sound long, but with the right story, we found people are happy to stay and often want more.

So now it’s time to add your OOH and print. For this we used Jason Bell, a legendary photographer who is behind some of the most iconic film posters and bought media in all the places you expect to see a film be advertised.

You’re also going to need to add some trailers, but to make these the authentic way you need to add Gary Martin for the voiceover, the king of trailer voices, this will give your trailers and product films exactly the right sound.

We found adding a press Junket to the mix really landed the romcom feel, so we included Max Balegade, a content creator who is known for interviewing stars at big film launches, we incorporated this in with releasing behind the scenes footage and of course some bloopers.

Now you’re onto your final flourishes, we added a bespoke type design to ours and then garnished with a review from the king of romcoms, Richard Curtis.

As a final note, be wary of taking shortcuts, they’re the quickest way to turn authenticity into a soggy-bottomed pastiche.

Best enjoyed at Christmas.