The spot, created by London agency, Brothers & Sisters, aims to inspire people to create more valuable family time together; research revealed that the balance between work, chores and quality family time is even more difficult nowadays. To differentiate Center Parcs from other short break destinations, Brothers & Sisters conceived the idea of following a family of bears in human family life today; with distractions, work challenges and concerns about family time with their children.

The Think Artfully studio began work on visualising the agency’s script, with artist James B illustrating the bear family in several modern scenarios, the office, commuting from work and at home, as well as the forest setting of Center Parcs.

A soft colour palette and facial expressions were used to illustrate the changes in mood; from pensive and stressed in modern day life, to happy and calm with their reconnection with nature. Great care was taken to draw the bears in a realistic-yet-human way; avoiding characteristics that could make them seem either cuddly and cute, or wild and out of place.

From concept development, it took four months and an impressive 10,450 hours of animation to transform several actors into photo-real CGI animated bears for the finished TV commercial.

We loved working on this project and were delighted to see how the finished ad looked, which you can watch a behind the scenes of how they did it here.