Sainsbury’s has unveiled an eerily cute stop-motion campaign to promote its range of Halloween products, directed by Mike Waring the animation lead behind Wes Anderson’s Oscar-tipped Isle of Dogs.
The film, created with agency of record Wieden+Kennedy London, follows a petrified lip-syncing pumpkin.
The madness of the spot is only heightened by the score – a version of the theme tune to 90s kids show ‘Round the Twist’, which will invoke a sense of nostalgia for anyone who remembers the bizarre show.
After a spider drops down into the pumpkin's periphery, the animation then escalates into a big spooky scene; our pumpkin protagonist getting increasingly frightened by the products that surround him.
Two haunting skeletons slap a pair of goggly glasses over the vegetable’s carved-out eyes, before his lid is lifted, dispelling a flutter of bats that fly around the darkened background. Out emerges a big hairy spider, which wriggles, and jiggles; all to highlight the fact that you can 'find surprisingly strange things' at Sainsbury's this Halloween.
Another of Anderson’s entourage Andy Gent, the puppet master for a number of the director's movies, created the cast for the spot.
The TVC was produced by Passion Pictures and launched on Tuesday (16 October). It is supported by cinema, print, and VOD iterations.
: 'Halloween 2018'
