FLYING FISH CREATES FIREWORKS FOR TIC TACS

A fireworks display made out of animated Tic Tacs was created to launch a larger pack size for the iconic product, via agency Belgiovane Williams Mackay, Sydney.
Directed by Luke Savage from Flying Fish in New Zealand, the campaign is a celebration of more Tic Tacs, showing Tic Tacs bursting out of the packets and exploding into even more Tic Tacs.
“The BWM creative team chose stop-frame animation for this campaign as a tribute to the cool, iconic Tic Tac brand,” said Rob Belgiovane, BWM Executive Creative Director. “The result is a testament to the patience of a creative team committed to a perfect outcome.”
The commercial was all created in-camera over a three-day shoot, in a studio in Auckland.
“We wanted it to look like the kind of commercial that could have been made in the 70s, all created in camera and with an authentic feel,” Savage said. “The whole creative team was of the same strong view in this regard.”
The authenticity of the campaign was also achieved by using everything real – from the Tic Tacs to the mint and pieces of orange and peel, said BWM creative Jon Burden. “Painstaking hours were spent pushing Tic Tacs, mint and orange around on a piece of black felt. Luke’s collaborative nature meant we got the best out of the three-day shoot and it kept things fun.”
Savage said: “The highlight for me is the quadruple explosion at the end. That was the longest shot, it took 4.5 hours. At the end each new frame was taking 10 minutes, with about 100 Tic Tacs that each had to be moved 3mm at a time. We had to go through it meticulously to make sure every Tic Tac had been moved – if we left even one out, we’d have to do it again.”
Savage’s animation experience has always taken varied approaches. He has tried everything from the children’s toy Magnadoodles to a photocopier, as well as techniques like claymation and hi-res digital photography.
Agency producer Abby Hunt said finding a director who specialises in such a niche field as stop motion animation was a bit of a journey. “We spoke to a director in the US who ball-parked the production budget at US$500,000. Then a magazine called C2 landed on my desk with an article on Luke, who had just done a stop frame animation job for Wieden & Kennedy Portland. We knew from the first time we chatted to him that he was the man for the job.”
Producer Anna Stuart from Flying Fish sums it up: “I hate to think how many Tic Tacs we went through. I think we all got an addiction.”
The campaign is airing in Western Australia as a test market.

Creative Director: Adam Hunt
Creative Team: Jon Burden and Jake Rusznyak
Producer: Abby Hunt
Executive Creative Director: Rob Belgiovane
Production Company: Flying Fish NZ
Director: Luke Savage
Producers: James Moore and Anna Stewart
Editor: Jodie Gallacher @ Winning Post