vccp virgin media o2 walrus whizzer VM_PRSHOTS_WalrusFront

Walrus cruising in a speedboat: Virgin Media's latest broadband campaign

'Walrus Whizzer', created by VCCP, follows on from award-winning campaigns ‘Highland Rider’ and ‘Goat Glider’

By Creative Salon

23 August 2024

Virgin Media O2, along with its agency of record VCCP, has created the third chapter of its ‘To Better and Beyond’ campaign ‘Walrus Whizzer’ in a bid to highlight the freedom that better broadband brings.

Set to the soundtrack of Billy Ocean’s ‘Suddenly’, the 60-second hero campaign film emulates the unstoppable feeling experienced when using Virgin Media broadband and spotlight’s the provider’s recent ‘Best Broadband Experience’ award win from GWS.

The humorous and memorable film follows on from award-winning campaigns ‘Highland Rider’ and ‘Goat Glider’, this time featuring a walrus, climbing out of icy waters in a fishing harbour and hopping on to a speedboat. It hits the controls and cruises off into the distance with confused locals and a group of envious walruses looking on as it speeds away. The walrus lets out a roar of happiness as it skims across the waves.

VCCP and its global content creation studio Girl&Bear worked with Swedish artist and director Andreas Nilsson and film production company Biscuit Filmworks to bring the film to life. The award-winning director has recently worked on films for Apple, Uber Eats and Volvo and shot ‘Walrus Whizzer’ in his home nation.

The team behind the campaign once again turned to Emmy and Bafta award-winning Untold Studios to create the unstoppable ‘Walrus Whizzer’. The innovative and complex production process began with CG rendered shots, and a bespoke asset build of the walrus through complex 3D models. These were brought to life through a team of animation supervisors and further development within FX to ensure realistic simulations of the characters movement. Complex lighting models were created within CG to make all of the shots look utterly realistic and photographic which then handed over to the composition team to embed rendered images into our real film plates and craft our final touches, like lighting glints, film grade and lens flares.

The resulting film is a distinctive and unexpected story of a maverick walrus discovering his mojo and working out how to move faster and more smoothly through life.

Simon Valcarcel, marketing director at Virgin Media O2, said: “This latest campaign celebrates the feeling Virgin Media broadband delivers to our customers every day. Smooth, fast and reliable. Being recognised by GWS as providing the ‘Best Broadband Experience’ only confirms what our customers already know - they are truly unstoppable with us.”

David Masterman, deputy executive creative director at VCCP, added: “With our Highland Cow and our Goat we brought to life just how unstoppable Virgin Media is. We’ve been on land and in the air. It was time to take to the high seas. And, let’s face it, Walruses have a lot of personality.”

The campaign launches today and will run until 27 October across Cinema, TV and VOD, Online, D/OOH, Social and Radio. Media planning and buying was managed by MG OMD. Creative digital agency Bernadette also worked across the integrated campaign to bring digital, social and online elements to life.

Credits

Campaign Title: Walrus Whizzer

Client: Virgin Media O2

Advertising Agency: VCCP

Executive Creative Director: Jonathan Parker & Chris Birch

Deputy Executive Creative Director: David Masterman

Art Director & Copywriter: Jason Keet & James Hodson

Senior Agency TV Producer: Ed Mueller

Business Director: Alistair Nichols

Senior Account Director: Oliver Humphries

Senior Account Manager: Connor Fairfield

Head of Planning: Jenny Nichols

Planning Director: Jennifer Cownie

Production Company: Biscuit Filmworks

Director: Andreas Nilsson

Producer: Lucy Gossage

Md/executive Producer: Rupert Reynolds-Maclean

Head of Production: Emily Atterton

Director of Photography: Lasse Frank

Production Designer: Agustin Moreaux

1st Ad: Tobias Reiner

Local Service Company: Bacon

Service Exec. Producer: Magne Lyngner

Service Producer: Axel Herrlin

Production Manager: Frida Lämber

Production Assistant: Caroline Duveholt & Moa Astré

Stylist: Sofie Krunegärd

Hair And Makeup: Märta Gasslander

Location Manager: Rasmus Wassberg

Editor: Ben Campbell @ The Quarry

Vfx Studio: Untold Studios

Creative Director: Ben Cronin

Executive Producer: Ian Berry & Sophie Harrison

Producer: Matt Marshall

Production Assistant: Zuzanna Drozdz

Colourist: Julien Alary

Vfx Supervisors: Sebastian Caldwell & Alex Grey

Cg Lead: Kanishk Chouhan

Head of Animation: Tim Van Hussen

Vfx Leads: Antoine Mariez, Lewis Pickston, Thomas Huizer, Anton Ognyev, Will Lorenzetti, Tom Humphrey, Sriram Namana, Ash Tilley, Geraint Wright, Matt Kavanagh & Simon Legrand

Audio Post-production (TV): Factory Studios

Sound Design & Mix: Anthony Moore & Josh Campbell

Audio Producer: Olivia Endersby

Music Supervision: Finger Music

Production (Ooh, Digital & Radio): Girl&bear

Creatives (Ooh, Digital & Radio): Aly Golani, Emma Jackson, James Pettit & Andy Mitchell

Producer (Ooh, Digital & Radio): Charlotte Mccluskey

Post-producers: Rebecca Freeman & Natasha Allmond

Broadcast Affairs Manager: Katie Singer

Editor: Mark Singer

Mcr Supervisor: Anil Douglas

Resourcing: Gemma Rapkins