John Lewis: Buster The Boxer [02:09]

Credits & Description:

#BusterTheBoxer
John Lewis has launched its 2016 Christmas advertising campaign 'Buster The Boxer'. Set to a cover version of the song 'One Day I'll Fly Away', recorded by the British band Vaults, the two minute advert tells a magical, make-believe story of Buster the Boxer dog and his family at Christmas. The advert tells the story of a little girl called Bridget who loves to jump. Her Mum and Dad buy her a trampoline for Christmas and hide it in the garden to surprise her with on Christmas Day. However, after dark, in a magical world observed only by Buster, a cast of wildlife animals emerges - two foxes, a badger, a squirrel, and a hedgehog - who discover the trampoline and have fun jumping. On Christmas morning, Bridget excitedly runs out into the garden to discover her present however Buster bounds past her and starts bouncing on her trampoline - she watches him wide-eyed. As the story brings to life some of Britain's most-loved wildlife, John Lewis has chosen The Wildlife Trusts to be this year's Christmas campaign charity partner. It was directed by Dougal Wilson who also directed three previous John Lewis Christmas adverts including 2011's The Long Wait, 2012's The Journey, and 2014's 'Monty's Christmas'. Agency: adam&eveDDB London.
Media: TV
Category: Retail services
Client: John Lewis
Agency: adam&eveDDB London
Country: United Kingdom
Director: Dougal Wilson

Clients: Craig Inglis: Customer Director & Rachel Swift: Head of Marketing, Brand &
Social
Agency: adam&eveDDB
Chief Creative Officer: Ben Priest
Executive Creative Directors: Richard Brim, Ben Tollett
Copywriter: Ben Stilitz
Art Director: Colin Booth
Chief Strategy Officer: David Golding
Planning Partner: Martin Beverley
Managing Director: Tammy Einav
Business Director: Miranda Hipwell
Account Director: Caroline Grayson
Account Manager: Alice Child
Producer: Panos Louca
Assistant Producer: Sion Prys
Media Planning
Media Company: MGOMD
CEO: Tim Pearson
Executive Director, Head of Planning: Clare Peters
Head of Retail: David Bratt
Client Account Director: Andrew Darby
Client Account Director, Digital: Ric Roberts
Film
Production Company: Blink Productions
Director: Dougal Wilson
Animator: David Bryan
Producer: Nick Goldsmith
DOP: Joost Van Gelder
Production Manager: Hannah Fowles-Pazdro
Production Assistant: Jack Bingham
Post Production Company: MPC
VFX Executive Producer: Julie Evans
VFX Producer: Hannah Ruddleston
VFX Line Producer: Sandra Ekland
Creative Director VFX, MPC: Diarmid Harrison-Murray
Colourist: Jean-Clément Soret
Shoot Supervisor: Tom Harding & Tito Fernandes
VFX Supervisor 3D: Fabian Frank
VFX Supervisor 2D: Tom Harding
Animation Supervisor: Tim van Hussen
3D VFX Team: Chloe Dawes, Anthony Bloor, Ben Thomas, Graham Cristie, Jessie
Amadio, Julien Labussiere, Luca Maccarelli, Matthew Gifford, Radu Ciubotariu, Tito
Fernandes, Tushar Kewali, Vincent Ullman, Will Laban, Hanna Binswanger, Max
Mallmann, Jessica Groom, Ankit Dheraj Toppo, Earnest Victor, Ganesh Kumar S., Bibin
Balan P, Gayatri Patel, Jyoti Prakash Panda, Manjunath Ramakrishnaiah, Inigo Vimal Roy,
Ria Banerjee, Gayatri Patel, Gerard Dunleavy
Animation Team: David Bryan, Boris Cailly, India Barnardo, Martyn Smith, Lou Thomas,
Cynthia Collins
2D VFX Team: Grant White, David Filipe, Andreas Feix, Alex Snookes, Venkatesh
Rajagopal, Ginesh Gandhi, Jonathan Box, Amresh Kumar, Padma Priya, Prasanth
Palaparthi, Rajesh Kumar, Shalwin Shaiju, Yasasvini. V, R Vignesh, S. Samson Samuel,
Shalwin Shaiju
Soundtrack name and composer: One Day I’ll Fly Away, Randy Crawford
Performed by: Vaults
Music Supervision Company: Leland Music
Music Supervisors: Abi Leland & Ed Bailie
Sound Company: Factory
Sound Design & Mix: Anthony Moore
Audio Producer: Becs Bell
Editing: Final Cut
Editor: Rick Russell
VR Experience
Production Company: MPC Creative
Executive Creative Director, MPC Creative: André Assalino
Interactive Creative Director, MPC Creative: Pete Conolly
Executive Producer: Dan Phillips
Lead Producer: Joana Flor
Senior Interactive Producer: Joana Guimarães
Interactive Production Assistant: Sinead Catney
Lead Tech Artists: Pablo Bravo and Cat Dixon
Lead UE Developer: David Pereira
UE Developer team: Dennis Ippel, Guiseppe Mattiolo, Thomas Lopez, Olivier Dumas,
Bertrand Leroy
Lead Unity Developer: Tim Porteous
Unity Developer: Vitor Castanheira
Front and Back-end Developer: Pedro Rocha
UI Designer: Gorkem Menekse
VFX Supervisors: Kumar Chandrasekaran – VFX HoP; Sean Mullen – VFX Creative
Director; David Kern – VFX Technical Director; Selvam Venkatesan, Praveen Madhyasta –
Animation; Anil Kumar Singh - Rigging
VFX Artists: Matthew Gifford; Tushar Kewlani; Raju Ganesh; Baskaran Seetharaman ;
Pritesh Krishnappa Kotian; Atheesh Sankaran; Ashish Kumar Chourasiya; Shivam Pandey;
Krishnendu Bikash Maity; Yogesh Gadge; Ganesh Mohan; Mithun Monga
Shashi Prakash Raj; Vivek Mangainath; Dhanesh Puthiyavalappil; Harwin Sebastien;
Srinivasa Sheelam; Aditya Shukla; Sminesh Sudevan
Senior VFX Producer: Tomek Zietkiewicz
VFX Production Supervisor: Devendra Kumar
VFX Producer: Prithi Amarnath
VFX Production Assistant: Lokesh Reddy
Tech Artist: Pravenn Thanvi
DMP: Michelle Tolo
Motion Designer: Jonny Eveson
Sound Design: 1618 Digital
Sound studio: ClearCut
VO Artist: Faye Ripley
Interactive, Print & Social
Interactive Creative Director: Till Diestel
Lead Interactive Producer: Budr Elnusairi
Integrated Producer: Laura Smith
Assistant Producers: Naomi Barrie, Laurelle May
Interactive Design Lead: Andrew Murray
Project Managers: Hatty Day, Hannah Dowty
Head of Design: Paul Knowles
Designer: Olly Watts
Design Company: King Henry
Head of cain&abel production: Brett Kelsey
Editor: Hannah Taylor
Editor: Joe Andrews
Editor: Paul Cheshire
Editor: James Ireland
Motion Graphic Designer: Ed Christie
Photographer: Noemie Bottiau
Interactive Designer: Adrian Baker
Interactive Designer: Megan Young
Interactive Designer: Jennifer Slack
Interactive Designer: Hashir Khan
Interactive Designer: Norman Lo
Bookings Manager: Serena Moll
Interactive Resource Manager: Jacinta Crane
Interactive Partner: Simon Adamson
Social Media Director: Viki Imrie
Social Media Strategist: Jess Taylor
Social Media Manager: Lauren Booty
Synopsis:
This year’s film captures the joy of a gift that everyone loves, told through the story of Buster the Boxer and his family at Christmas. The spot is set to a Vaults cover of Randy Crawford’s ‘One Day I’ll Fly Away’. #BusterTheBoxer
Synopsis:
The John Lewis Christmas ad has become a much-anticipated event for the music industry and wider public over the past few years, and 2016 was no exception.
For the 2016 edition we worked with arranger Chris Hill to reimagine Randy Crawford’s 80’s classic to make it John Lewis’s grandest musical outing to date. The sense of scale stood up to the comedic moments in the narrative and the lyric created a persuasive feeling of possibility. John Lewis went for a more light-hearted feel than in the previous year and the music was a moving and joyful accompaniment, imbuing the visuals with warmth - despite the snow!
In order to bring genuine magnitude to the arrangement we organised and recorded a sixty-piece orchestra and seventy-piece choir in Studio One of the legendary Abbey Road Studios with three-piece Vaults. The band bought a more contemporary yet beautifully heart-felt quality to the song that respectfully updated the original but left it entirely recognisable.
As in previous years there was a single release and additional PR around the campaign that we coordinated, and the extensive coverage benefited the track as well as the brand. The track reached #5 on the iTunes chart and also featured on Spotify’s highly-influential New Music Friday and Future Hits playlists. There were also live in-store performances and a high-profile social media presence.
The film became 2016’s most shared ad (see Unruly’s viral chart for 2016) despite only being available for the last two months of the year, and it was the fifth most shared Christmas ad of all time and the most shared John Lewis ad ever. The retailer saw a sharp increase in sales of all the items featured in the film immediately after the launch and there were 61,000 Twitter mentions just on the morning of launch (Nov 10) and 48,234 mentions of the #BusterTheBoxer hashtag showing huge brand engagement. https://unruly.co/news/article... http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/... https://www.retailgazette.co.u... https://www.marketingweek.com/...