‘Tis the season
The Canopy X Southampton Football Club — how to wrap a festive TV commercial featuring coaches, players, fans, backroom staff and a brass band, midway through a hectic football season.
With an exceptionally tight turnaround, it was all hands to the pumps to support Southampton FC with the production of their 2023 Christmas TV advert. Our concept would see us create the ultimate Saints fan’s Christmas party, featuring subtle product placement of club merchandise for those perfect gifts and stocking fillers.
A shoot prep day laid the foundations for the many moving parts that had to come together seamlessly during the shoot. Props and decorations including the biggest Christmas dinner anyone had ever seen were rigorously organised to enable us to stick to the tight schedule.
During the 11 hour shoot, we had only a two hour window to capture all footage and photography with 10 featured players and management, so everything had to run like clockwork. Shots that didn’t feature any familiar faces were captured ahead of the shoot, whilst a second photography day allowed us to capture featured merchandise for use in post-production. All imagery was available and ready to use just two days after the shoot.
From initial storyboard concepts to the final ad being sent to Sky AdSmart, the entire process was wrapped in just under four weeks.
Teams from The Canopy, Saints, and our production partners Sonder collaborated seamlessly to ensure the finished ad looked fantastic and hit screens in time for Christmas, and even Pompey fan and Head of Moving Image Jeremy put on a brave face throughout.