SITUATION

Amazon Prime Video, with its broad range of movies and series for a diverse audience, is all about entertainment. We wanted to communicate how great shows can bring people together and spark joy in anyone’s life.

BRIEF & OBJECTIVES

The campaign was going to be Prime Video's first Christmas advert in Europe, showcasing across seven countries on TV, digital channel, social media, and cinemas during the most saturated time of the year for advertising. Whatever we did shouldn´t be unnoticed, we needed a story that felt unique and original, like Prime Video's own shows and content. We had to create the first-ever Prime Video commercial in Europe and it had to be one to be remembered.

Prime Video is a company about content and stories, that is why we wanted to create a modern Christmas tale that’s as entertaining as the content on the platform and make people smile this Christmas.

"An Unlikely Friendship” is the tale of an unexpected bond, forged through a shared love for entertainment, between two misfits: Hattie, a bullied hyena who can’t smile, and Carl, a grumpy zookeeper who can’t find any reasons to smile. What better character than a hyena, a usually misunderstood and feared animal, to tell a one-of-a-kind Christmas tale condensed into two minutes. Hyenas are usually portrayed as savage animals, so we had to turn that around through the storytelling, different gags in the film, and our main character’s evolution.

The brand positioning—“Every Smile Tells a Story”—fueled our storytelling. If Amazon Prime Video is a brand that tells stories, why not tell one ourselves? That’s why we created this modern Christmas tale, the story of an unlikely friendship between two misfits forged through a shared love of entertainment: Hattie, a bullied hyena who can’t smile; and Carl, a grumpy zookeeper who can’t find any reasons to smile. Both overcome their awkwardness with a little bit of help from Amazon Prime Video.

The film was featured on every major TV channel in seven European countries (United Kingdom, France, Austria, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, and Ireland) and also on Facebook, Instagram, youtube, and cinemas.

From Thursday 18 November 2021 to Saturday 08 January 2022

An unlikely friendship was a very ambitious project from the beginning as our main character is a fully CGI (yet ultrarealistic animal). This required a very detailed and careful supervising and directing of all the details involving the production and coordinating a more than a 100 people international crew and more than 50 VFX animators worldwide.

Most of the locations and sceneries in the film were crafted and created from zero. From Carl’s apartment to the hyena’s den, carefully built with glass and stones. And locations like the zoo entrance and streets were carefully reconstructed to fit the story.

The response of the public was overwhelming all around Europe, especially in countries like the United Kingdom with a long Christmas commercial tradition where the expectations are always high.

The campaign was a total success with high brand recognition in every market where it was aired and the comments on social media were always positive, even on youtube we achieved a 100% of positive comments and not even a dislike (something quite uncommon).

The story of Carl and Hattie had an immediate reaction from the public, fan letters were received by Prime Video and the agency, and even the Bishop of Wolverhampton, Clive Gregory declare An Unlikely Friendship his favorite commercial of the year ;)