BBC comes clean about April Fools penguin joke

by Darren Davidson, Brand Republic 02-Apr-08, 12:20

LONDON - The BBC has come clean about its April Fools joke involving flying penguins, with the release of a viral video film showing how the footage was faked.

The campaign to support the second phase of the marketing campaign for the BBC's iPlayer catch-up service was the brainchild of advertising agency RKCRY&R.

The 90-second ad was created by Mark Roalfe, the agency's executive creative director and Paul Silburn, creative director. It was directed by Vince Squibb at Gorgeous, with Sarah Caddy at Red Bee Media as producer.

The animation was created by a team of animators and compositors at Passion Pictures using films of birds with similar shapes to penguins such as guillemots taking off and flying to ensure they could reproduce the movement of the penguins as realistically as possible.

The ad, which launched yesterday morning, has received more than 100,000 views on viral video sharing websites and the BBC's iPlayer's homepage as well as dedicated social networking communities for wildlife enthusiasts.

The spot shows former 'Monty Python' star Terry Jones following a unique colony of Adelie Penguins that "fly" thousands of miles across the frozen wasteland of Antarctica to the Amazon Rainforest.

David Bainbridge, BBC head of marketing communications and audiences for future media and technology, said: "The purpose of the April Fools campaign is to continue to raise awareness of BBC iPlayer, and bring to life the benefits of the service in a unique way.

"It is also hoped that this creative device will not only celebrate what BBC iPlayer can deliver, but will also say something quite profound about the BBC's overall appetite for creative risk-taking and innovation."

The viral campaign online was seeded by digital agency GT on websites such as boreme.com, Break.com and Bebo.

Comments

Peter Martin - 02/04/2008

I thought it was superb. However, I am amazed at the rather odd relationships that exist with my licence-fee funded national broadcaster these days. This required an ad agency to create and a production company to execute and digital agencies to 'seed'? Was it pro bono? Or is there another funding/revenue relationship at work here? Anyway, I was totally fooled. I really thought our Tel was flown up to the icy wastes with a full crew, and all ready to get my dander up about the carbon consequences. So now if they can do this here, can we expect the same every time they feel the need to have a reporter with icicle boogers in a branded puffer standing on something white to tell us something beastly is happening to the icy wastes... because of folk flying all the time to exotic locations?

B Agotcha - 02/04/2008

I liked it. A sign that the BBC is being less risk averse with its creative approach. Surely only a good thing for the creative community at large?

Mark Smith - 02/04/2008

Must have been a hard sell for the agency. Hats off to Mark Roalfe and Rainey Kelly.

Luke Worth - 02/04/2008

What's with the censorship? I said I thought it was totally lame that BR went to such lengths just to show they got an April's Fools joke. Let's see if you can avoid censoring my opinion this time.