The funny thing about childhood is, it stays with us forever. It is part of our foundation and no matter what age we are, our childhood memories assist in keeping us young at heart. Most of us harbour a Mr Men or Little Miss character within us and exhibit these childlike characters sporadically throughout our life-span.

When commissioned by the nationally famous Mr Men brand to develop their animated viral campaign, our Mr Men characters surfaced; we felt honoured.

The Challenge

We had a short space of time to take Little Miss Hug, the lovable and static expert hugger, and send her on an animated viral journey, whilst remaining specifically on brand with all illustration, music and animation.

Classic children’s author, Adam Hargreaves had designed “Little Miss Hug” in 2013. She makes the 35th Little Miss in the series and promises to hug anyone in need of a hug.

What we did

(how she saved the world) We worked alongside the Mr Men team at Sanrio Ltd to create the storyline for an animated video for online viral distribution in the UK and Europe, along with a mini clip of Little Miss Hug in each country she visited to maximise the virality.

The world was lacking the mood-uplift created by hugs, and in a bid to rescue civilisation Little Miss Hug travels the world taking selfies of her exchanging a hug with the likes of: Little Miss Somersault, Mr Tickle, Mr Grumpy, Little Miss Sunshine, Mr Strong, Little Miss Tiny and Mr Greedy, helping them all out of difficult, awkward and some embarrassing situations. Her collection of selfies, captures the essence of why everyone needs a hug, and the difference it has made in her world.

Little Miss Hug’s collection of selfies

The Production:

One of the biggest challenges was coming up with a truly viral advert that would engage viewers from beginning to end, and easily reflect a variety of Mr Men and Little Miss characters all in the same project. Most importantly the advert needed to uphold the integrity of the Mr Men brand, whilst being modern enough to fit with the latest trends.

Core services employed

• 2D Animation
• Script writing
• Storyboarding
• Assets creation/illustration
• Animated typography
• Soundtrack/scoring

The Results

Our client loved the English and French animations. Within a month of going public they had received more than 6,000 Views and Likes on YouTube and Facebook.

The Little Miss Hug book was launched at a book signing with Adam Hargreaves in Selfridges, Central London on May 10th. It probably wouldn’t surprise you that our Creative Director, Jide Johnson, couldn’t refrain from taking a selfie with Adam. One may even say it was the Mr Cool within him surfacing…

Adam Hargreaves and Jide Johnson taking a seflie in Selfridges

Enjoy the globe trotting Little Miss Hug journey below:

For more information on how to engage your audience online through animated or live action videos, email: info@aniboxx.com or drop the team a reply and we will respond within 24 hours.

Growing up on childhood favourite foods such as Potato Waffles and Fish Fingers, I was delighted when Aniboxx was approached to work on an animated campaign for Birds Eye.

Challenge

We had just under three weeks to take the charismatic and mysterious Birds Eye bear “Clarence” and create a two-minute animated video to promote the “Quest for Clean Plates” campaign, to help parents encourage their children to eat more at tea-time. Classic children’s author, Roger McGough had written a poem, which was printed on plates to be distributed in Sainsbury’s. Our adventure was to turn this poem into an animated journey to be digitally distributed in places relevant to parent audiences online.

What we did

We focused the tea-time stories animation on Clarence searching the globe for the different recipes and trying the native dishes in the countries he visited.

What we did that was strikingly different was create an interesting translation of the mysteriously eerie and enigmatic puppet bear that you may have seen in the live action Birdseye adverts. Leaning on his sociable and opinionated nature, we turned him into a friendlier character that a younger age group (aged 3-10) would be attracted to, and also included a rhyming narration that they would be able to remember and sing along to.

The Production

We storyboarded and created the assets for the worlds that Clarence was to explore in line with the script given to us (which was the poem on the plates written by Roger McGough). We also filmed Roger in studio, as we created an earlier edit that featured Roger, fusing live action with animation. The music was created in house by our classically trained producer, who scored the video according to the world Clarence was in and of course we animated the whole ad from beginning to end, using the latest adobe master collection.

The Results

The video was well received by the client along with their target audience, and there was significant engagement following the distribution of the videos on various online spaces, including but not limited to The Telegraph, Marketing Magazine and the BBC. It is a pleasure to have our work featured on such platforms and we are continuing to produce the type of quality that manifests the best results and engagement.

Aniboxx Featured In Marketing Magazine

Aniboxx Featured In The Telegraph

Below is your opportunity to enjoy the rhyming animated poem:

For more information on how to engage your audience online through animated or live action videos, email: Jide@aniboxx.com or drop the team a note and someone will be back with you within 24 hours.

Time

You save loads of time. Video is a superb way to express a complicated message in a short amount of time. Working with a professional production company, a video can be created very quickly, saving you time and money. With the ability of social sharing, your video can also be circulated to thousands with a click of a button.

Impact

Video simultaneously communicates to two senses: sight and hearing. And, by adding text to video, a third layer of communication can be achieved.

Analytics

How many people watched the video? How many people shared the video? How did they share it? Who did they share it with? Did the video reach its target market? Has the video sparked discussion? Using tools such as Google Analytics videos can be tracked and accurate data collected. The same cannot be said for many traditional forms of media.