Morrisons Is Keeping It Real

A shopping trolley on a fishing boat out in the North Sea. A pram being pushed through a muddy cabbage patch. For creative agency Leo Burnett, making these outlandish ideas come to life is just another day at the office - one that landed them in the very thick of it quite unlike before. 

Morrisons’ ‘Fresh from Market Street’ campaign celebrates the outlandish lengths shoppers go to source their food, with a simple message: shoppers don’t need to go to extremes as Morrisons have already done the hard work. 

The work sees two spots: one showing a woman battling stormy seas on a boat to find the best haul of fish, and another with a family trudging through a muddy cabbage patch trying to battle the wind and rain in the quest for veg. 

In true populist creativity style that is at the heart of Leo’s working ethos, both ads were made in a glamorous fashion: on a fishing boat out at sea with a small crew juggling packets of Kwells, scripts and cameras, and in a Scottish cabbage patch, complemented by neat row-by-row visions of green blobs in mud. 

In today’s technical era, both pieces of work could have easily been made with a green screen and CGI - AI even, but for Leo Burnett, getting their fisherman gear and farming hats on was the only option.

Creative Salon spoke with its chief creative officer (CCO) Mark Elwood and creative director Kim Gill to discuss the making of the work - including battling rough weather to sea sickness, the importance of human-led production, and what the industry needs to be doing more of.

Creative Salon: It'd be great if we start by explaining how the idea came about. From my understanding, everything was filmed organically - why?

Kim Gill: It all started with such a simple concept - just talking about fresh fish and fresh vegetables. That simplicity really grounded us. We wanted to reflect how down-to-earth Morrisons is as a brand, but also bring a sense of drama to the sourcing story.

Bringing someone like Nick Ball on to direct and shoot it added that cinematic flair, but really, what we captured is just the everyday reality for farmers and fishermen. While we were nervously prepping ourselves for an eight-hour trip out to sea, that’s just a normal day for them.

Mark Elwood: There’s something brilliant about Morrisons that people might not realise: they source more food directly from British farmers than any other supermarket. There are fewer links in the supply chain which is a pretty incredible fact.

When you look at it - British fish being landed straight on beaches and going right to Morrisons - it’s amazing. And then the question becomes: "How do you tell that sourcing story in a way that feels human and real?".

What Kim said really hits the heart of it; it’s about the lengths Morrisons goes in order to get you the best fresh produce - whether that’s fish or veg. It’s not glamorous. No one’s desperate to stand in a field in the rain pulling up cabbages, but people do that day-in and day-out, and they do it so you don’t have to. That dedication - that’s the heart of the brief. 

CS: It sounds like a pretty intense filming experience! 

KG: We've always had a close, tight-knit team with our clients but this took it to another level. During the safety briefing on the dock, in the dark, we were all just eyeballing each other thinking: "Right, we're really doing this".

I think we were all secretly thinking, "If one of us throws up, the rest of us will follow", but no one did thankfully. There was definitely that moment of mutual understanding that we were all in it together. 

Nick [Ball], the director, was also incredible. He’s the kind of person who goes all in. He actually spent a significant amount of time becoming a fisherman before the shoot.  Because the boat was so small, if you were on it, whether you were the real crew or film crew, chances were you’d be on camera at some point, so Nick dressed as a fisherman too. He’s just an absolute force of nature - obsessed with detail and completely committed.

ME: Nick had gone out a couple of times beforehand to recce it properly. He actually spent time with the fishermen, seeing what they do, how they work. That was really important.

With Morrisons, everything has to be factual. We couldn’t just buy a load of fish from somewhere else and pretend. It had to be real Morrisons fish, caught in the way it genuinely would be. It had to be British fish, going onto shelves in the stores otherwise, what’s the point?

You can’t lie to people. That’s not what this was about. It had to be accurate, and that mattered not just to us but to Morrisons too. Nothing in that shoot was faked. Sure, no one turned up with a shopping trolley, but the fishing itself - what you see - is exactly how it’s done.

CS: And whose decision was it to actually go out and shoot this for real rather than to use AI or virtual production?

KG: That decision came right from the beginning. As Mark said, this is Morrisons - we’ve got to show what really happens.

You can imagine this script in the wrong hands being turned into an AI or CGI extravaganza to dial up the drama. But actually, what we wanted was something raw. That’s why we chose someone like Nick Ball. We knew he’d get to the gritty reality of it all.

There’s also a lovely contrast between the extremes of the sourcing and the calm, welcoming environment of a Morrisons store. We wanted to show those opposites. But no - using AI or CGI was never on the table. It had to feel real, because that’s who Morrisons is.

ME: There was a brilliant moment the week before the shoot - we were constantly checking in, chatting about everything, and suddenly we realised: the weather’s going to be good.

And we’re like, "Wait - what do you mean it’s going to be sunny?" We were planning to send people into cabbage fields, expecting rain and drama. None of it was CGI. The recce team in Scotland had done an amazing job, and now we were having to rethink how it would look.

The script had been written with rain in mind - it’s February in Scotland, after all. You’re not banking on sunshine, but we had to pivot.

KG: I think the two extremes really complemented each other. We had the wind and expanse of the sea, then the stillness and rawness of the fields.

We had to pivot quickly - "How do we make this feel extreme and difficult if there's no rain?", but somehow, we made a cabbage field look beautiful.

There was definitely a sense of pride in showing off what the British Isles has to offer produce-wise and that was exciting.

I’ve loved seeing, over the past decade, how the UK is being portrayed more beautifully in TV and film. For so long, American content looked sleek and sexy, and the UK always looked a bit rubbish. But that’s changed. And I think that should absolutely be reflected in commercials too.

CS: On the boat - how was the experience of the extreme weather? Was it that bad?

KG: Oh yes. There was the main boat, which had Nick, the director of photography (DOP), the camera crew, Slasher the fisherman, and a few others with some brilliant names. Then we were on the second boat.

Our captain was Andrew, an ex-fisherman, who was driving us, and we had our producer Ewen [Brown] with us too. Because we needed to stay within range for the video village feed, we had to follow pretty closely behind. Normally, directors want the video village miles away but this time it had to be nearby so we were constantly trying to keep signal while bouncing across the sea.

Any time we drifted out of range, we'd lose signal. So Captain Andrew would turn the boat sideways to steady us - which helped with the motion - but then we’d lose the feed. So we’d have to turn back into the waves again to follow the main boat. It became a constant dance of “steady the boat, now chase the boat”.

The actual fishing boat - because it was a single-hull trawler - was much more solid. But our boat was a small catamaran usually used to ferry people out to wind turbines. So it got bounced around a lot more. Andrew told me, “Oh yeah, this is worse than the fishing boat”, and I thought, “Great - I'm not telling the rest of the crew that".

By hour six, though, we’d all sort of adjusted. We were telling ourselves, “We’re doing this. We’ve only got a couple of hours left." Everyone was keeping an eye on each other - “You okay?”, “Yeah, I’m okay, are you okay?” It was constant.

I was reflecting on this the other day. You get excited about scripts and shoots but this was something different.

This was a genuine experience you just can’t replicate. And that’s sort of why you get into this job in the first place. It’s all very well doing shoots for holiday ads in Cape Town or wherever - lovely, but this was something else entirely. It was real. 

Everyone came away from it feeling like it was probably the most unglamorous shoot we’d ever done but also one of the very best.

CS: Do you think this is further proof to the industry that creativity still needs that human touch, and that it should never be lost?

ME: There’s a lot of buzz around AI at the moment - and rightly so. I think it’s fantastic. In advertising, we’ve always had brilliant tools at our disposal, and AI is another one.

But when it comes to something like this you have to ask, “Is AI advanced enough to deliver that kind of shoot? To go out there and genuinely produce that kind of film?” At the moment, not really.

The real value of a director on set is the ability to find those moments - the things that happen unexpectedly. Maybe it’s something in someone’s pocket, or the way a crew member stands, or a little glance - those are real. You can’t make that up. That’s someone seeing something in that moment and going, “That’s gold - let’s get that again".

So I don’t think this stands against the use of AI in the industry at all. It’s just about craft. This particular project needed that human presence, that real-time instinct.

What’s been incredible about this campaign is the reaction. The uptick has been huge, and a lot of that’s down to the media placement: airing during Clarkson’s Farm on Amazon.

I’ve had loads of texts from clients, family, friends all saying how brilliant it is. And you forget in our business given how long we live with an idea before it’s out in the world. Kim, Joe Miller, who wrote it, and I had been talking about this for months. You become a bit numb to it.

Then it goes live, but you still don’t really know until it hits people. And what’s happened is that loads of people watching Clarkson’s Farm have gone, “That ad is amazing - it felt like the show just kept going".

That’s a magic moment - when the creative and the media come together perfectly. It’s definitely added power and resonance, especially with Morrisons’ heartland audience. It’s had real talkability which is something we always aim for at Leo’s. We call it “populist creativity”, and it feels like we really hit the nail on the head with this one.

As creatives, what would you like to see the industry doing more of when it comes to production and its approach to craft?

ME: There’s such a swirl around this topic right now especially with AI, and how that’s starting to influence production.

We’re seeing changes with short-form, with social, and also a big move back towards long-form content. If you look at Cannes this year, some of the most celebrated work was long-form. So what do we need from production? Honestly, the same thing we’ve always needed: world-class partnerships.

I don’t think the shift has fully hit yet. It probably will in the next 18 months or so. Right now, agency-side and production-side are still figuring out how to navigate AI, and more importantly, how to collaborate on it.

That partnership between creatives and production is still absolutely essential. We can't do what we do without them - whether it’s in this new AI-driven landscape or through more traditional methods.

When you see a truly great piece of film, shot beautifully, full of human moments, with that emotional resonance, nothing beats it. There’s still nothing like seeing that kind of craft, even on a big cinema screen.

KG: And it comes down to detail, doesn’t it? Our DoP, who we’d wanted to work with for ages, was just incredible. We shot the supermarket scenes at night so the store could keep trading during the day, and he was meticulously placing carrots, potatoes, broccoli, making sure everything looked gorgeous. Getting the colours just right.

That level of care and craft made such a difference to this story because it had to feel real, grounded, and honest.

Watching someone like that, with his experience and attitude, making those vegetables look that beautiful - no one else could’ve made those carrots look like that in that aisle. That’s the power of production when it’s done properly.