JWT appoints th1ng for HSBC campaign

Award-winning production company th1ng has been commissioned by JWT London to direct and produce 12 adverts for a global TV ad campaign to promote its HSBC Advance account.

Created by Anthony Farquhar-Smith, one of the directing trio Tom, Dick & Harry at th1ng, the commercials show how HSBC Advance simplifies your banking needs by helping you achieve your goals.

Each commercial shows a different person fulfilling their dreams, whether that is exchanging one career for another or taking a break from work to travel the world thanks to HSBC Advance. Every ad tells its own story through the way props, clothing and background scenes evolve to show someone achieving their goals.

So, "today, taking my lunch break" becomes "tomorrow, taking a career break" as a 20-something office professional ultimately exchanges his work shirt, suit and tie for a safari shirt and hat, while the background shifts from an office to jungle, and a pen, a phone and a sandwich are exchanged for maps, camera and sunglasses.

To achieve these effects where the camera remains locked on each person in the ad, as all around them the background, their clothing and their props change, required Anthony to use a stop frame animation technique known as pixilation. The net result is a fast-moving, beautifully executed series of commercials that bring to life JWT's vision of demonstrating how HSBC turns the dreams of today into the realities of tomorrow.

The project was completed by th1ng for JWT in just five weeks, from directing to all post.

"Anthony and the team at th1ng pulled out all the stops from a creative perspective, while the production team led by Ru Warner came up with some neat ways to make the shoot as effective as possible," says Dominic Buttimore, executive producer at th1ng.