This film was created purely to drive social conversation and awareness around innocent during the most unusual and difficult Christmas period on record - in the midst of the global Coronavirus pandemic. Our objective was to create a film for Twitter that captured the zeitgeist and provoked conversation in a charming and humourous way, that befitted the innocent brand - an output only achievable in a medium like Twitter, where sharing and commenting on current events are at the platform’s heart.

As Christmas approached in 2020, we noticed that one really important worry hadn’t been addressed: what with lockdowns and travel bans, many children were fearful that Santa Claus wouldn’t be able to make his journey to deliver their presents. We set out to reassure children across Britain that they had nothing to worry about. First, we wrote a children’s book, called ‘A Jolly Safe Christmas’, which told the story of Santa’s anxiety around not being able to travel, overcome by innocent’s creation of ‘the Santa Safety Suit’ – a hazmat style Santa suit with a variety of Corona-repelling features that would save Christmas by allowing Santa to make his journey without putting himself or others at risk. This book became the basis for our film, the narrator of which was revealed to be Santa himself, who received the real ‘Santa Safety Suit’ at the north pole, thanks to innocent’s endeavours.

We went to the places we knew conversations happen quickest, and whilst we didn’t expect the sort of divisive reaction it got, using Twitter was essential to our mission - make innocent’s Christmas ad the most talked about.

The film was posted on Twitter on December 15th. Within 48 hours it had amassed over 2 million views and created a storm of publicity and conversation. Echoing public sentiment around the pandemic, the film was loved by many, heralded as the feel-good story that the nation needed and, incredibly, garnered genuinely thankful responses from many parents, including one mother who tweeted “Thank you! My son is autistic and has been really worried about Santa this year”. However, the insight driven subject matter of the film also provoked outrage from a different corner of Twitter, with covid denyers across the country hailing it as an affront to public decency and threatening to boycott innocent. This controversy played in our favour, because by deliberately placing the subject matter of our film in the middle of an already raging debate, we achieved far more reach and talkability than we could have anticipated.

The work increased conversation on Twitter about innocent by 2456% during the campaign. Its talkability meant that notable British celebrities joined the conversation, with Loose Women’s Denise Welch and massive standup comedian Jason Manford (and their millions of Twitter followers) becoming embroiled in a Twitter spat over the film, helping it to further outperform its media spend and resulting in it being covered in major national news publications like The Daily Mirror.