Butter Menthol: Orange glow

Dael Oates of Prodigy directed Nestlé’s highly visual Butter-Menthol campaign.

The spot via Singelton Ogilvy & Mather Sydney begins in a winter playground with schoolgirls playing a game of hopscotch. Our focus shifts to an unwell young girl sitting on her own who wants to join her friends at play, but is struggling with a winter cold. She reaches for a pack of Butter-Menthol and when she pops one out, her world suddenly changes; a fantastical bright sun kissed day, a barren tree bursts into branches of colourful stop-motion blossoms and the girl receives a comforting embrace from mum.

“Initially the lead character was to be seen as though she’s inside an orange bubble,” Oates explains. “However, I wanted to get right inside her head. To experience her world with her, in a classic fantastical style. It needed that ‘feeling’ to work. We took an over-the-top theatrical approach to both parts of the commercial. Cinematically playing up the hyper sentimentality of the scene,” says Oates.

Using stop-motion with live action and creating a fantastical world using visual effects. Oates’ experience manipulating and directing visual effects, most recently as an Animal Logic VFX designer, is evident in this spot. Oates worked with industry leader Animal Logic to create the CG sequences.