Hey there, I’m Andy Mcananey a Creative Director at London advertising agency adamandeveDDB. Day to day I’m tasked with coming up with advertising campaigns for major brands like Volkswagen, Lucozade and Amazon amongst others. But right now I’m going to give you an overview of the Avanti West Coast campaign and how we took a blank page and turned it into an all singing, all skating 60 second TV spot for Avanti West Coast and the iconic Turbo the Tortoise, under the tagline Feel Good Travel.
Defining Feel Good Travel
But firstly, what does Avanti Feel Good Travel mean? Well, it means being able to relax, not worry about your journey. It means gliding past traffic jams, getting to your destination speedily and perhaps having something to eat along the way. It means heading to a brand new destination knowing you'll arrive refreshed and ready to be inspired.
Avanti West Coast strives to bring Feel Good Travel to their customers with things like their Feel Good Field Trips and their Responsible Plan. But how could we bring that promise to life in a way that was surprising, engaging and would put a smile on people’s faces? With a rollerskating tortoise called Turbo!
Of course, it wasn’t that simple. It never is. There wasn’t an instant bolt of inspiration as soon as the brief was in the system. To get to the final idea we’d worked on multiple different strategic areas, written hundreds of scripts and put our concepts through rigorous testing. But once it was clear that we had a winner on our hands, we put our well-used pens down and eagerly got into production.
One of the great joys of working in advertising is seeing something which was once just a nascent thought in someone’s head come vividly to life. But how does a sketch that’s (if we’re being kind) somewhat rudimentary, turn into something quite amazing?
(not amazing) (amazing)
Making an Avanti West Coast advert
Firstly, it starts with getting a director onboard (this will be my first and last train pun). We pitched the idea to legendary director Tom Kuntz and thankfully he loved it. So Tom went away and got stuck into his treatment. This is where a director describes the tone and look and feel of the film. As well as getting into more specific details like the storyboard and character design. We wanted our Avanti tortoise to be as realistic as possible, not a cartoon cut-out with silly over the top features. It had to feel like it was a genuine reptile having a blast by whizzing through stationary inner-city cars and zooming through the verdant hills of the Lake District. Like this frame from Tom’s storyboards.
(that's a bit more Feel Good)
But having good intentions is one thing. We needed a kick-ass post-production house to bring this to life and join us on our journey (oh, I did it again). Untold Studios who’ve created amazing VFX for Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Netflix’s Sandman and The Boys on Amazon were our first choice. Luckily, they were able to make a Turbo-sized space in their busy schedule.
They sketched out initial designs and focussed on the most intricate detail to ensure Turbo became a fully realised, living and breathing character. What would their roller skates look like? What kind of backpack would Turbo the Tortoise wear? We even discussed the colour combinations of their accessories to make sure the Avanti West Coast palette was prominent throughout.
Once the designs for Turbo were all approved by the team at Avanti West Coast and adamandeve, Untold began to build 3D models of them. We’d already shot the ad in the weeks before, with a rudimentary stand-in of Turbo being used to track his movements and get the right framing for the shots. So we knew where they were going to be and roughly what they were going to do, the wizards at Untold just had to bring them to life (not an easy task).
The process begins by mapping their movements with a grayscale model, getting Turbo’s skating motion on point. Making sure they flowed effortlessly through people’s legs, and pirouetted to perfection as they grabbed a mouthful of lettuce. The picture above shows this stage, where we were getting the minutiae of their facial reactions just so. Once we were happy with their actions, then the final renders began to take place. This is a time-consuming process where the animators put the scaly textures on their face, give their eyes a glassy sheen and get their tortoiseshell to the perfect patternation. And then you end up with something quite incredible like this.
Turbo the Tortoise's rise to fame
Once we had the fully fleshed out Turbo for the TV spot then we started to roll them out into other media. In the first phases of our communications, we had to establish Turbo as a brand mascot. So we used them in simple executions to build clear memory structures in the mind of the public. That way whenever they appeared the public would start to associate them with the brand.
As time progressed and people started to recognise the lil’ roller skating reptile we could start playing with how and where they appeared. Basically, it allowed us to have a little bit more fun with them. Push the boundaries a bit. For example, to promote the Avanti West Coast family ticket, we thought it’d be a good idea to have Turbo appear in a kids' board book alongside a Turbo family. This made it more pertinent to the target market, and gave the character more depth, making them warmer and more charming.
Or if we were aiming our execution at 18-30 weekend travellers, Turbo could show up on a keyring bursting with trinkets, to illustrate the masses of things you can do when you travel by train.
There are so many different places we can take Turbo the Avanti West Coast tortoise creatively. We know they can be a strong asset for years to come, and it’s super exciting to think about what we could do next!
Feel Good Travel brought to life
And to think this whole process started with a person in our creative department sitting in front of a blank sheet of paper with a Sharpie in hand. They stared at the brief and pondered how they could bring Avanti West Coast’s promise of Feel Good Travel to life. Then 6 months later it was fully realised and out on TV, in print and in digital for everyone to enjoy. The public absolutely loved watching Turbo, and the responses we had online and in person were amazing. Now for us, that’s the very definition of Feel Good.
