Manchester agencies, Rig2 and adam+gary, have served up a Wimbledon campaign for Christy towels.
The ‘Icons meet Icons’ creative sees giant versions of Christy’s Wimbledon Championships Towel wrapped around some of the world’s most famous monuments.
The campaign runs across print and video and has already racked up millions of views, likes, comments and shares.
“Our goal was to create a campaign that truly turned heads and matched the magnitude of the Wimbledon tournament,” explained Amanda King, Head of Creative at Christy – whose history in making towels in Manchester goes back to 1851.
“The nostalgic value of these iconic locations, combined with our iconic towel, brought the ‘Icons meet Icons’ campaign to life in a remarkable way. The positive reaction from fans captured the excitement of the Wimbledon tournament. Rather than just asking ‘was it successful?’, the overwhelming response has us now pondering, ‘how do we recreate this success in the future?’”
Both agencies said they were faced by some “interesting creative challenges.”
Due to a short print deadline, Rig2 focused on producing ultra-high-quality, realistic imagery series for use across Christy’s point of sale and Wimbledon invites.
Their biggest challenge was to create an impression of drape and movement in a still image while showcasing every detail of the towel’s cotton loop texture. To achieve this, it created small structures mimicking the shape of each landmark, draping a Christy Wimbledon towel across them, then bringing the final product to life in post-production.
“Seeing a heritage brand like Christy embrace CGI is inspiring. CGI in marketing can turn imagination into reality, sparking conversations and captivating audiences in ways never before possible,” said Paul Abel-Brown, Co-Managing Director at Rig2.
For the video content, both teams went out on location to film at a number of locations. The Championships towel was modelled and animated entirely in 3D, so adam+gary complete control and flexibility of its movements, physics, scale, and how the towel interacts with the landmarks.
Christy was keen for the studio to recreate “the unique texture, from how the yarn is spun to how it interacts with light, ensuring it looked as fluffy and absorbent as the real thing.”
The video footage and 3D towel was then combined with a bespoke audio mix for each location.
