This campaign was created to launch Harvey Nichols’ new loyalty scheme, The Rewards App. The scheme offers customers free perks and complimentary services. To promote this, we harnessed the nation’s other great lovers of freebies – its shoplifters.
The online film uses real CCTV footage of shoplifters at Harvey Nichol’s Knightsbridge store getting caught in the act. It is meant to show that if you want freebies from Harvey Nichols, you’re better off getting them the legal way. The faces of the featured shoplifters have been disguised with animated heads to protect their identity. The endline reads: Love freebies? Get them legally.
The animators began by creating designs for the different characters in the film. We wanted clean, colourful and expressive designs that would suit the actions of each shoplifter.
The animator then tracked the footage and animated each head, responding to their positioning and action. In terms of our character’s expressions, the animator referenced the original footage as a starting point, but then added and exaggerated things to bump up the humour and make the emotion more obvious to read in the fast-paced, grainy action.