Why Air Canada Flew into the Holidays with the Story of Two Reunited Christmas Ornaments
For those who are lucky enough to have loving family and friends, obviously, the holiday season marks the perfect opportunity to reunite, share precious time, and replenish the low batteries that come with the dark end of year days. But, sometimes this isn’t all that easy to actually do. People move. Geographical distances become large to the point of posing too much hassle to make it feasible… or at least, not without the help of a good airline company.
Year after year, Air Canada has celebrated the importance of bringing people together over the holiday season with beautiful, heartfelt campaigns - something which 2023 proved no different. Created in partnership with FCB Toronto and Hornet, this year’s work tells the story of two nutcracker bears who are split apart on a Christmas tree. Set to four-time Juno Award-winner Charlotte Cardin’s cover of Bryan Adams’ 'Everything I Do (I Do It For You)' in the English spot, and 'Une Chance Qu'on S'a' by legendary Montreal crooner Jean-Pierre Ferland in the French version, the work features daring escapes, all in the hopes of reuniting. It’s funny, it pulls the heartstrings, and when, thanks to a little help from a certain airline, the two are finally able to hold hands again, it truly speaks to the magic of connection during the holiday season.
So, to learn more about just how this came to life, LBB’s Josh Neufeldt sat down with the team from FCB, including executive creative directors Jeremiah McNama and Andrew MacPhee, SVP, strategy Shelagh Hartford, VP, head of content Ravi Singh, as well as Hornet director Dan Marsh, and Air Canada’s director, brand strategy and content marketing, John Xydous.
LBB> This represents a continuation of Air Canada running heartfelt holiday ads. As such, what was the brief this year, and what immediate ideas came to mind?
John> This year, we asked our long-standing partners at FCB to help us create an uplifting story that captures what the spirit of the holidays means for us. We wanted to continue with the whimsical animation we’re becoming known for, but with a fresh new twist, all while staying unmistakably Air Canada in its voice and message through the use of beloved Canadian music choices.
Shelagh> We know that the holidays are the busiest travel time of the year, as we’re all racing to get home and celebrate with our loved ones. But every year we dig into what else is going on that makes that need to be together so important, so that the ideas feel fresh and timely. And though we are no longer overcoming lockdowns or 10-person bubbles, we realised that there’s a cultural undercurrent of not taking the ability to be together for granted anymore. We now have a taste of what it’s like to be forced to be apart during the holidays… and we’ll do whatever it takes to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
LBB> And specifically, what made a set of nutcracker bears seeking to reunite on the Christmas tree the right approach for this year’s campaign?
Jeremiah> A great Air Canada holiday story is something people expect from the brand, so the bar gets raised every year. There were tons of scripts on the table, all focused on being together for the holidays no matter what. In the end, we fell in love with the charm of two characters who are meant to be together making their way back to one another.
John> With this year’s ad, we wanted to introduce characters that audiences everywhere could instantly connect to. While this isn’t the first story of nutcrackers coming to life, we think our nutcrackers’ heroic quest to reunite strikes a strong emotional chord with our customers.
LBB> Notably, the campaign doesn’t over-emphasise the Air Canada brand, other than it being the main catalyst for the two protagonists being reunited. Why was this the right creative decision? And were there any Easter eggs slipped in that viewers might not have noticed?
Shelagh> At the end of the day, this is a spot about travel during the holidays, which inherently makes it a spot about Air Canada. We had to first build up the anticipation of the magical moment our heroes are reunited so that Air Canada’s role is all that much more meaningful to the viewers. It’s not about the brand being present in every scene, rather it’s about being present in the right scene.
John> Our customers are at the heart of everything we do, and this year more than ever, we were inspired by them – specifically, the resilience and love that brings people together over the holidays. That’s something we feel incredibly fortunate to play a small part in, and by focusing on the journey and keeping the Air Canada brand in the background, we’re highlighting our commitment to our customers and their travel experience first.
That said, we did bury a few tributes to Air Canada in ‘Once Upon A Tree’, just for fun! For example, you’ll see festive imagery from previous spots including a little reindeer, the loons from our 2022 holiday spot, and a nod to the legendary Bonhomme from Québec’s Winter Carnival. It’s our small way of paying tribute to our past ads, to our partners and the customers who have supported us over the years.
LBB> From here, what was the writing/storyboarding process like? How did you work together to create strong proof of concept?
Andrew> What set Hornet apart as the right partner for us was their enthusiasm for the story, right from the beginning. They not only shared our excitement but also pushed for an execution that took it to another level. They understood that to stand out among the other holiday films, we needed to bring this story to life in a unique and distinctive way.
As such, the process of writing and storyboarding was quite extensive. At FCB, we went through multiple rounds of discussions, both internally and with the clients, to ensure that the foundation of the story had the right tension and emotion. Once the overall story was approved, we collaborated closely with Hornet over several weeks to iron out all the details of the story. There was a lot of back-and-forth, but our shared goal was to ensure that every single scene received careful consideration and that nothing was overlooked.
Dan> The truth is it's easy to fall back on pretty traditional looks and do what CG does really well. But FCB wanted an animation style that felt unique and stood out, and what excited everybody was the idea that we could make something memorable visually. Story comes first to create a film which resonates with audiences, but grounding the visuals in nostalgia, while keeping them fundamentally fresh, could imprint that story in our memory. We were ambitious in hoping to create a cultural touchstone rather than mimicking one.
Our pitch included initial motion tests which clearly defined the stylistic approach, and concept art to begin to flesh out the feel of the world. But evolving a process from tests to a cohesive film is its own challenge. The test tells you ‘this can work’, but then you have to make it work in a production pipeline as well. While we designed and refined the characters themselves (I named them Emilé and Ben), we had incredible painters really start to unify the painting style, and our CG and cel animation leads began to look at how we could take the ideas from the pitch and make the process production friendly while keeping the handmade charm of the whole thing.
LBB> Tell us more about what it takes to illustrate and animate a spot like this! How long did it take, and how did the process go?
Dan> The animation style is based on a classic technique akin to ‘cut paper’ animation, where characters are created as two-dimensional ‘puppets’ which can be moved frame by frame to create the illusion of life. But in this case, we were going a step further. Inspired by the groundbreaking work of Yuri Norstein’s animations of the ‘70s and ‘80s, we wanted to bring our 2D puppets into 3D scenes, where we could be immersed in the world. To achieve this, the 2D animation was done quite traditionally. Each piece of a character was painted by hand, and our cel animators moved those pieces, or swapped them out to achieve a sense of physical weight and the most subtle of expressions. The ‘layers’ of these pieces were retained, and brought into a 3D scene which was lit as if it were a physical diorama, so these 2D characters could start to have a peculiar sense of volume.
The same is true for the environments - incredible artists painted the world in layers, which were then brought into the 3D scene while the character moves through that scene (so lights interact with them and shadows are cast and move). It all feels really magical!
LBB> Building on the topic of artistic style, you used a combination of CGI and hand-painted brushstrokes for this. Tell us more about what this looked like! How did you blend the two to create a beautiful final product?
Dan> When we developed our storyboards and timed them out in an animatic, we had a roadmap for all the scenes we needed to create. So, our environment artists began painting these out, while character designers worked through just what Ben and Emilé would look like. And, our CG teams began rough layouts of the animatic so that we could have a general understanding of the lensing and cinematography of each scene.
As paintings were finished, they were broken out into layers, and laid out in a multiplane system in CG. Some CG objects become projections of the painting onto crude geometry to give the illusion of depth and bring nuance to the lighting.
Meanwhile, character animators began rough animation of the characters based on the layouts. When rough animation was approved, animators broke characters into layers much like the paintings, and Hornet’s pipeline artists built some tools to bring the layered cel animation into the 3D scene and give CG lighters control over how each layer would interact with the world. Lighters established the overall look for the scene based on a detailed colour script from our painters, setting mood and tone, but also continuity for storytelling. And their work was further refined in compositing, where we could bring further nuance and atmosphere to the scenes.
LBB> When it came to aesthetics and the look and feel, what were your main aims and ambitions and how did you achieve them?
Dan> It was always the intention to lean into the hands of the artists behind the film. Digital tools have given us all the ability to endlessly refine and seek a kind of myth of perfection. But we all know it's often the very imperfections in a thing which bring out the real beauty and uniqueness. So, that was the starting point. We didn’t look for an overtly technical approach to the production. We looked at it from a different POV.
After we developed the story itself, we broke the film down into the environments and characters we needed to build, and how the camera needed to move through those scenes.
LBB> Of course, the music is also incredible, with the return of Charlotte Cardin. What made you want to bring her back, and specifically, how did you find the right music for each version?
Jeremiah> Our rough cut had the Bryan Adams version on it, and Air Canada has a long relationship with Charlotte Cardin. We always hoped she would be open to a cover, but it didn’t really come together until a few weeks before the launch. Thankfully it did, and it created a bit of magic!
LBB> What challenges have you faced during this project? How did you overcome them?
Jeremiah> The main challenge was fitting everything we wanted into 90-seconds. A story like this could easily be a three-minute plus rollercoaster of a film. A significant part of the development process was finding the right balance between emotionally connecting with the viewer while taking them on a memorable holiday adventure.
John> Our commitment to continually finding new ways to connect meaningfully with our customers extends to our storytelling. We worked hard to create a visually unique ad this year. Of course, creating animation like this is always high-stakes, and you have to trust your gut. That means taking a few risks and working through some challenges here and there, but we think it was worth it!
Dan> The biggest challenges in this piece really come down to protecting the process. The truth is, there are easier ways to tell this story, but we strove to stay true to the hand-crafted process as much as possible. This could’ve easily led to bottlenecks in the production - it can be harder to work asynchronously in this process. We overcame this by creating an incredibly tight-knit team where constant communication and collaboration became key. Everybody really had to understand each other's job to make it all work.
LBB> What lessons have you learned in the making of this campaign?
Dan> I wish I learned my lesson, but I think it's always the instinct to push the creative as far as possible. The easy path can get the job done, but there’s a lot of joy in making things that feel different from everything else we see out there, and that joy really comes through in a finished piece.
John> Going the extra mile to create a unique ad like this means thinking deeply about how to put a fresh angle on holiday storytelling – both in terms of the message, and of course, the look and feel of the ad itself. We’ve learned that the level of thought and care that goes into creative like this always pays off, and I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve created and the amazing reactions we’ve had so far.
LBB> How have people reacted to this campaign? And how does it fit into Air Canada’s branding going into 2024?
Ravi> The response has been great. We’ve seen so many people on social talking about the spot and even admitting to tearing up while watching it. The best part is seeing everyone’s comments that talk about how they had been looking forward to our spot this year. We love that people are joining in on our holiday storytelling tradition.
John> ‘Once Upon A Tree’ premiered to excellent reactions from audiences, many of whom of course relate to the characters and their determination to be with the ones they love most over the holidays. We’re delighted that the heartfelt sentiment shared between the nutcracker ornaments struck an emotional chord with audiences, who know that reuniting with loved ones during this magical time of the year is truly the greatest gift of all!
As for the second part of the question, the ad reflects the deep level of care and human connection we’re always striving for at Air Canada. This type of storytelling will ring true for other brand moments in the year ahead, like the 2024 Olympics and the introduction of new products and routes.
LBB> Finally, do you have a favourite sequence from the spot, or an aspect you’re most proud of?
Andrew> The ‘Die Hard’-inspired action sequence where the nutcracker jumps from the plane while avoiding the jaws of Fluffers the house cat!
Dan> I think the interior tree sequence is a standout. Emilé entering the unknown, tightrope walking and falling is just so great. It feels great watching it large too.
John> We’re proud of everything about this spot – from its conceptualisation and storybook-style visuals to Charlotte Cardin’s incredible new take on beloved Canadian songs. I think we’ve achieved what we’re always setting out to do with our holiday ads by bringing together some of Canada’s best talent to share something that’s new but resonates emotionally with the world. Everything from start to finish has been carefully thought out to add a little festive magic into the hearts of Canadians. But also, the cat swiping at the nutcrackers gets me every time!
