Almost everyone in Britain knows Ancestry, but getting people to try it is the challenge.

With the anniversaries of both The Blitz and VE Day happening in 2020, British history was already a topic of public conversation and appetite for historical content was high - especially as there was not much to get excited about in the present day.

Ancestry wanted a campaign to demonstrate their brand promise that you can 'bring your backstory to life' which targeted people with an interest in British history, who might be persuaded to find out more about their own past.

The solution was to take a famous British landmark, the Piccadilly Lights at Piccadilly Circus in London, and bring its backstory to life. A simple, iconic demonstration of how much people can discover about their own history with Ancestry.

Ancestry took one of Britain’s most famous landmarks, the Piccadilly Lights at Piccadilly Circus, and brought its backstory to life.

The high tech screen was transformed into a window to the past, revealing how the building looked in the 1940’s, 60’s and 80’s when it was adorned with handmade neon signs. For those in Piccadilly Circus that day, it was like looking at the same landmark in London's glorious past.

Every vintage sign and even the building hidden behind the big screen were recreated from scratch in CG, referencing archive imagery and news footage to accurately represent the way the building looked at each period in time.

Not only did we carefully match the designs, we also matched the animation of each neon display based on footage from the early 20th century, so that every aspect of the building looked and moved just like it would have at the time.