‘A high concept, single-line idea’: the story behind Uncommon’s ad for Avios

Head of marketing and brand strategy Elizabeth Cunningham acknowledges that the currency isn’t fully understood by people but explains that you don’t have to be a frequent flyer to reap the benefits.

That sentiment is what has informed its new positioning and strategy. On the brief the brand gave to Uncommon, Cunningham says: “It’s almost to address this idea that people don’t fully understand how to collect points, how to redeem them and how everything fits together.” The marketer stresses that the brand didn’t want to be too prescriptive when working with the creative shop.

In the final ad, viewers see a range of 35 different people grocery shopping, drinking coffee and ordering Ubers, all of which are things Avios users can obtain with its rewards. But there’s a twist: in a world first, apparently, each of the film’s characters is on an e-foil (an electronic surfboard for those not in the know), heading toward a sunny beach.

Uncommon’s executive creative director, Sam Walker, says that it was his job to take everything about Avios and simplify it, but to do so in a hyper-engaging way. In his words, it was like distilling it down to a single image. “It’s a high concept idea, a single-line idea – what feels like everybody in their normal clothes, doing their normal everyday actions, coming into this amazing holiday destination, but in an unforgettable way.”

It’s a brand-new stunt, not just for Avios, and there are limited people in the world who are professional e-foil boarders, the watercraft only having been around for a few years and just starting to gain popularity. Actually, Walker says, they look a little bit like hoverboards, something straight out of Back to the Future.

Because getting a group this large together to glide seamlessly on the electric boards hadn’t been done before, there was a heavy dose of a ‘learn as you go’ attitude. Casting was crucial. Each person in the ad had to be a real e-foil surfer but also not have a stereotypical ‘surfer’ look. The ad is titled ‘Everyday’ and that’s the vibe they were looking for, albeit they had to look smooth as hell on the board.

Location was going to be key. The boards have a fin underneath, but the creatives needed the surface of the water to remain flat and calm. A huge body of water was found in Majorca that was perfect. Designing the formations of how the 35 people would be positioned in the water was another hurdle; it couldn’t look too regimented, but if it weren’t carefully planned, then people would just fall off their boards all the time. Can you imagine the amount of reshoots that would take?

“When you’re out in the water, there’s no reference points,” adds Walker. “The only way they could figure it out was to see where they were in relation to the next person. That’s how they stayed in formation.” All 35 people were in the water performing at the same time.

It was a tiring but rewarding day of filming and Walker says that once the surfers were out in the water, there was no way to communicate with them other than by megaphone. They were off doing their thing. The opening scene, which is very close to one of the performer’s faces, was the trickiest shot. He explains that drone pilots are used to filming fast car chases but that they always know where the ground is and where the car is related to it. This was something totally unique. “When you’re on water, nothing is static,” Walker continues. “So, it’s actually very difficult and precarious for them to get the right exact motion.” Everything was done in-camera, too.

Jeff, the surfer at the beginning, is actually 67 years old. The man holding the coffee cup in a cream suit is 66 and the lady in the pink is his wife. Walker says he told them all to act like they were the coolest they had ever been in their entire lives, as if they were in a hip-hop music video, completely badass. Of course, they aren’t actors and they don’t necessarily want to be famous; they are surfers who are in an ad.

The creative stresses how seriously he takes stunts; everything has to be meticulously planned. Especially when there are so many people, paired with drones flying overhead and boats in the water – that’s where the help of James Bond stunt coordinator Boris Martinez came in. He brought rigor and process to the project.

“They always say never work with animals and children. Well, there’s another one, boats!” laughs Walker. “People come in the background, people fall off the boards, or people get tired, or our boats are in the wrong position, and it’s hard to get back into it. And once it’s going, it’s going.”

Although the set could be a little hectic at times, you would never know from the final ad, which is calm and serene. This is amplified by the soundtrack, which adds to the epicness. Walker says he always writes with a song in mind and this time it was Nouveau Western by MC Solaar and also Frank Ocean’s Swim Good track, but in the end, they needed something with a bigger ending.

Walker quotes the old saying that you make a film three times: once at the script stage, then when you reshoot it and lastly when you edit it. The creative says they must have listened to around 1,000 songs but finally ended on Future Islands’ hit Seasons. “It’s not sad but has a little bit of pathos to it, which gives it a bit more meaning and a bit more weight,” he says. “You feel the humanity, feel you’re looking at everybody during the middle section, but then it breaks into this massive euphoric, huge epic ending.”

It’s just the beginning of the brand’s refresh. There’s more to come this Summer that will build on what’s been achieved through this ad. “It’s about building this story and having people understand what Avios is all about and how it fits with everything else they see and hear from us,” concludes Cunningham. “We’ll start to build in the rest of our sort of more individual campaigns that we do with our partners into this strategy so that it all starts to fit together nicely.”