Metrocentre

The brief

AL Marketing, the agency behind Metrocentre’s Christmas campaign, brought us in to manage the production of the TV commercial on their behalf. The creative concept came from the agency, and our job was to make it happen.

The idea

The commercial was shot in October 2021, just as the Covid rules were beginning to ease. Nobody had been able to have a big family Christmas the year before, so the agency’s concept was all about bringing families back together. We brought in a director, who took the original script and worked out exactly how he wanted it to look and feel, and the client loved what he came back with.

The ad follows three generations of one family as they each get ready for Christmas at Metrocentre. The children play in a toy shop, a young couple try on clothes, and the grandparents do the food shop in M&S, where Grandad sneaks a Christmas pudding into the trolley while his wife isn’t looking.

Then everybody heads home, one of them by train, and they all arrive at the grandparents’ house for the reunion they missed the year before. The voiceover sums it up: “It turns out this year’s must-have is each other.”

The production

We had less than two weeks to get ready, which isn’t long at all for a shoot of this size. In that time we put together a cast of eight, arranged the child licences, and assembled the crew: our regular director of photography, focus puller, camera assistants, gaffer, art director, make-up artist, stylist, runner and a chaperone for the children. We also had to find a house for the final scenes at very short notice, and arrange a shot on a train for the big homecoming.

Day one was at Metrocentre itself. Because it was October, the Christmas decorations weren’t up in the malls yet, so we borrowed some of Metrocentre’s own and moved them from spot to spot as we went. Metrocentre’s marketing team were with us all day to keep things running smoothly and to make sure every brand that appears had approved its involvement. It’s a huge place, so everybody got their steps in.

On day two we moved to a house in Northumberland, about 35 minutes away. It was a big space, but it felt a lot smaller once a cast and crew of more than 20 had arrived. There were no decorations there either, so our art director rearranged the rooms, put up and decorated the tree, and added festive touches throughout. It rained all morning, which wasn’t what we wanted for the outdoor scenes, but the skies cleared in the afternoon and we got some beautiful light at exactly the right time.

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