TUI - TUI brings its cheeky elves to London’s Underground in OOH animation with Global and POD LDN

TUI, in partnership with Global, the Media & Entertainment group, and post production company POD LDN, is bringing festive cheer to London Underground’s escalators with an animated outdoor campaign featuring its famous holidaying elves.

Expanding on TUI’s Christmas TV ad, which showcases what the elves get up to whilst Santa is away (spoiler alert – they love a holiday), TUI has taken the main character from the campaign into London Underground stations. The creative features a 10 second, 3D animation designed for the connected digital escalator screens (Ribbons) at Kings Cross, Oxford Circus and Waterloo. 

The creative idea plays on a holiday luggage belt - extending the holiday journey past the TV ad. To grab the attention of shoppers and commuters riding the escalators, POD LDN has transformed the ribbon screens into a motion-led experience that sees TUI’s Christmas elves come to life, moving from screen to screen in a smooth, looping motion sequence as they surf on top suitcases, riding past a series of holiday snaps, aligned to visuals from TUI’s wider ad campaign.

POD LDN delivered the end-to-end production, from storyboarding the creative idea with Global’s creative outdoor team, to developing the 3D models and animations, crafting 2D animation elements and designing and animating the backgrounds. The team also oversaw full compositing, bringing every component together into the final work.

The campaign kicked off on December 5 and will run until December 18.

Sara Ali, Director of Brand Marketing at TUI UK, said:“Disruptive formats are a key aspect of our media buy, and bringing our cheeky elves to life on the London Underground is a really fun extension of our beloved holiday TV ad.” 

Anto Chioccarelli, Creative Director for Outdoor at Global, said:“The escalator ribbons on the London Underground are so perfect for storytelling and they provide a space for brands to play around with their ads in a bespoke way. They also provide a space to interact with audiences and build emotion. This campaign is a great example of that and it sparks real joy! We loved working with the creative team at TUI to bring their Christmas TV ad into the real world, and POD LDN have done an incredible job of bringing it to life. It’s been wonderful seeing the elves on my commute to work this week and I have no doubt that it’s making everyone’s Christmas journeys a little brighter.”

Adrienn Major, Founder at POD LDN,added: “The use of character animation makes this campaign more memorable, engaging, and emotionally resonant. Working closely with Global, we were able to translate the personality of TUI’s famous elf into a unique OOH experience for the holiday season.”

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About TUI UK&I

TUI is one of the world's leading tourism and leisure groups and operates worldwide. TUI UK is the business behind First Choice, Marella Cruises and Crystal Ski Holidays brands, as well as TUI Cities, TUI Lakes & Mountains, TUI Tours, TUI River Cruises, and its leisure hotel brands TUI Blue, Holiday Villages, Magic Life and more. TUI partners with over 45 leading airlines, giving customers unmatched flexibility to find their perfect holiday experience.

Part of one of the four regions within the Markets + Airline business division at TUI the tourism business fulfills package holidays, components and ancillaries to a large customer base in more than a dozen source markets.

TUI UK & Ireland has a team of over 11,000 employees and its full holiday programme serves millions of customers each year. TUI Airways, part of TUI Airline, operates to over 80 destinations in 32 countries with 70 aircraft from 23 UK and Ireland airports with 69 aircraft. TUI UK & Ireland work with independent agents and has a retail estate made up of more than 330 retail stores including TUI superstores where TUI’s travel experts take care of all customers' needs.

About POD LDN 

POD LDN offers a unique and flexible post production solution. This hybrid, on demand model has all the benefits and infrastructure of a post house but operates on a flat day rate like an in house resource or a freelancer. We offer a wide range of post production services and talent, agile workflow solutions, where clients communicate with one go-to person from our project management team or a single producer who leads all processes.www.podldn.com