ACTION MAN AND MONEYSUPERMARKET’S ‘EPIC’ CAMPAIGN
MONEYSUPERMARKET LICENCE FAMOUS TOY FOR TV AD
BACKGROUND:
Moneysupermarket had been running their ‘epic’ themed campaigns since 2011. We started working with them in 2016 and helped them achieved enormous success from two campaigns featuring He-Man and Skeletor from Masters of the Universe, which had ran for 6 months each. The first had shown Skeletor dancing to Irena Cara’s ‘Fame’, and the second involved He-Man and Skeletor paying tribute to Dirty Dancing. After such huge success, the question to best asked was ‘what comes next?’.
THE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT:
With the brief to find a suitable character within budget, we prepared a shortlist of different characters that we felt were the best to consider. The creative team took some of these and developed scripts around them which we shared with each of the Rights Holders and walked them through the creative vision. We also negotiated the commercial terms in the event of the creative moving forward with their characters.
THE CALL TO BORN:
Moneysupermarket’s agency Mother London reached out to us to confirm that they wanted to continue with the creative theme of iconic characters feeling ‘epic’, but they wanted a new character to be the star. The character had to have a very nostalgic appeal to a British audience. The licensing fees also needed to be within budget and we had to ensure the character’s Rights Holder would be comfortable with the idea of the daring and surprising creative.
WHERE BORN LICENSING ADDED VALUE:
The character chosen was Action Man, the iconic British action figure owned by Hasbro. As Hasbro’s licensing agent, we finalised the licensing commercial terms and managed all other aspects of the project from start to finish without charging any clearance fees. We are able to do this thanks to our unique business model and strong appointed agency relationship with Hasbro.
THE SHOOT:
This was a stop motion shoot involving a number of different stations being filmed simultaneously. Born Licensing’s David Born visited the shoot in London and was on site to help Mother London and Moneysupermarket with any licensing related issues.
THE APPROVAL PROCESS:
It was our job to ensure Hasbro, the Licensors of Action Man, were comfortable with the creative development. They reviewed the script, storyboard, action figures, costumes, edits and final material. It was important to ensure the Action Man action figures appearing in the commercial were authentic.Born Licensing managed the entire approval process from start to finish, allowing all other parties to focus on what they do best.
THE LAUNCH:
The campaign launched at primetime during Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway on ITV1. It was very well received and was named Ad of the Day in both The Drum and AdWeek. It went on to win Gold at The Andy’s and a Wood Pencil at the D&AD Awards 2018. The campaign consisted of 60 second, 30 second and 10 second spots, radio, print, online and social media.
ACTION MAN - CLASSIC: ACTION MAN and all related characters are trademarks of Hasbro and are used with permission. © 2017 Hasbro. All Rights Reserved. Licensed by Hasbro.
THE EXPERIENCE
Born Licensing worked on this for almost 6 months prior to the campaign going live. We managed the entire licensing process from start to finish, including research and development, negotiation of commercial terms, the contractual process, invoicing, the brand assurance / approval process and everything else that came up relating to the use of Action Man in the advertisement.
“We always aim to bring our brand purpose to life in an entertaining way and our ads are all about illustrating that sense of empowerment you feel when you take control of your finances. Action Man is the fourteenth character to ‘save money and feel epic’ in our long-running campaign and we hope viewers are as surprised and delighted by his dance moves as we are.”
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