THE MAGICAL ADVENT CALENDER

TitleTHE MAGICAL ADVENT CALENDER
BrandTELEKOM DEUTSCHLAND GMBH
Product/ServiceBRAND
Category A07. Financial Products & Services, Commercial Public Services, B2B Products & Services
Entrant DDB GERMANY HAMBURG, GERMANY
Idea Creation DDB GERMANY HAMBURG, GERMANY
Idea Creation 2 adam&eveDDB London, UNITED KINGDOM
Media Placement MEDIACOM Düsseldorf, GERMANY
Production UNIT9 London, UNITED KINGDOM
Production 2 TONY PETERSEN FILM Hamburg, GERMANY
Production 3 THE MILL London, UNITED KINGDOM
Production 4 HASTINGS MUSIC Hamburg, GERMANY
Production 5 MOKOH MUSIC Berlin, GERMANY
Additional Company FACTORY London, UNITED KINGDOM
Additional Company 2 SONNY London, UNITED KINGDOM
Credits
Name Company Position
Dennis May DDB Group Germany Chief Creative Officer
Fabian Roser DDB Group Germany Managing Director Creative
Karsten Ruddigkeit DDB Group Germany Executive Creative Director
Michael Zölch DDB Group Germany Creative Director
Alessandro Rocco Tramontana DDB Group Germany Art Director
Carsten Hohenstein DDB Group Germany Senior UX Designer
Sarabjeet Singh DDB Group Germany Creative Technologist
Dominika Zajac DDB Group Germany Art Director
Juliane Ollendorf DDB Group Germany Junior Art Director
Lena Schön DDB Group Germany Junior Art Director
Philipp Truebiger DDB Group Germany Junior Art Director
Thimon Machatzke DDB Group Germany Senior Copywriter
Jeannette Bohné DDB Group Germany Copywriter
Thomas Köhler DDB Group Germany Copywriter
Katrin Spiegel DDB Group Germany Client Service Director
Franziska Fischer DDB Group Germany Account Director
Lena Landsberger DDB Group Germany Account Director
Arianna Giese DDB Group Germany Account Manager
Stefan Sindram DDB Group Germany Head of Strategy
Meike van Meegen DDB Group Germany Head of TV
Julian Faas UNIT9 Ltd. Animation
Stephan Bischoff UNIT9 Ltd. Graphic Designer
Steve McGeorge UNIT9 Ltd. Graphic Designer
Ryan De Silva UNIT9 Ltd. Illustrator
Ilaria Ponticelli UNIT9 Ltd. Illustrator
Yog Joshi UNIT9 Ltd. Illustrator
Sophie Langohr UNIT9 Ltd. Motion Graphic / 3D
Axel Wagner UNIT9 Ltd. Sound Design
Bruno Imbrizi UNIT9 Ltd. Technical Director
Jan Brandt Jan Brandt Author

The Campaign

It’s a German tradition to give kids an advent calendar on the first of December. The 24 doors, hiding a chocolate treat, are opened daily till Christmas eve on the 24th. The campaign: “The magical Advent Calendar” plays with that tradition by creating a multimedia experience that offers new content daily. In the story little Jonas – a boy who would never share – finds the magical calendar and discovers that he can’t open the little doors on his own. Only with the help of others he can open the doors and reveal the chocolaty treat. While the film ends with Jonas sharing the last piece of chocolate with his sister Sara, the whole story was revealed piece by piece in an interactive audiobook via the website and Soundcloud. By creating 24 episodes the campaign accompanied the Germans through the whole Christmas season.

Creative Execution

The campaign was built on three core elements: The film: Shot in the UNESCO cultural heritage ?eský Krumlov. It was released in a 2 minutes version on Youtube. The title song, originally written and composed by the Rolling Stones “You can’t always get what you want” supported our message. The website: Jonas’s room war created in 360°. Here users could open a new door daily and discover adventures with gamification approach and experience the power of sharing. Day by day the story evolved, with 24 lovingly animated illustrations in 180°-view. Users could gather ‘Collectables’ to reuse in upcoming chapters and ‘Shareables’ to share via social media. The audiobook: Fully released via Soundcloud. It was especially written for the campaign to tell the full story of the magical advent calendar. The audiobook was read by the famous German actor and voice-artist Rufus Beck. All these elements created a multichannel storytelling experience.

The film “The magical advent calendar” was watched almost 13. Mio. times and became the most successful Youtube-Ad in 2016. And many viewers followed the teaser to find out more and went online. The website was visited more than 500k times and offered a mobile first 360° online experience. From here people were directed to Soundcloud, to discover the audiobook. With 350.000 plays on Soundcloud the audio book even entered the German download and streaming charts: no. 1 in audio book charts, no. 5 in album charts. Based on that it’s safe to say that the campaign was a success. The famous Telekom claim: “Life is for sharing” came to life as Telekom shared new stories daily.

Instead of creating “only” a film, the idea was to be present all Christmas season. Therefore, the campaign first kicked-off with the Christmas film on Youtube – where it quickly reached almost 13 Mio. views, making it the most successful Youtube-Ad in 2016. And led all users from social media onto the campaign’s microsite. Via the website Der-magische-adventskalender.de the users could enter Jonas’s world. Here the magical calendar revealed new interactive adventures daily as well as an audiobook teaser. As the website was created to share “snack-content” the audiobook was hosted on Soundcloud, a platform where visitors are used to spend more time on. Here they could listen to a new audiobook episode daily. By revealing new content every day, the campaign stayed relevant through the whole season and gave people a reason to come back to the website and Soundcloud daily.