About the project

It’s not easy to create another Christmas campaign. That’s why, in this installment, IKEA has focused on highlighting the uniqueness of the new product line – fabulous, bold designs that transport you to a world of magic rather than into the lap of St. Francis. Santa Claus. We have created parallel worlds, the way to which is through the boy’s imagination and the magic “ball”. We designed fairy tale costumes combining the real and imaginary worlds, which were not associated with any historical era or specific fairy tale. The agency brief was to really show the Christmas magic – the kind that transports us to a completely different holiday that we’ve been anticipating all year. Relate the fairy tale world to the real world through common elements of characterization like hair color or facial hair.

Challenge

We had to look at the world through the eyes of a child, to find a common denominator for the characters of a mother, a sister, two aunts and a grandfather. The world of children’s imagination obliges, so it was necessary to look for imaginative, eye-friendly forms – after all, we are telling the story of a family around a common table. We didn’t want to use flashy colors and overwhelming forms, rather something that would coordinate with the very colorful and patterned costumes and, above all, with the beauty of the actors. Working on the concept, we knew that everything had to look real and natural in terms of how it was executed. Key to the fancy hairstyles turned out to be the actors’ natural hair color – thanks to it, the viewer has no problem identifying these characters in the real world. So for the hairstyles, there were 11 pieces made of artificial hair the color of the actresses’ hair, weighing about 3kg, which were then combined with real hair into fancy styles. The figure of the grandfather from the world of imagination has a fancy mustache glued on and a massive beard gathered into a round form. The actresses’ makeup is based on the colors of the costume, violets, fuchsias, gold, glitter and Svarovski crystals were used in it.

Awards

KTR AWARD 2019

Credits

Agency: Saatchi&Saatchi IS
Director: Marcin Filipek
DOP: Marek Sanak
Set Designer: Agnieszka Sobecka & Joelle Czajkowski (IKEA) and Olak&Brudz
Set Design, Costumes: Elwira Rutkowska
Characterization: Paula Celińska
Post-production & sound: Lunapark