South African ‘Snow’ Film Named World’s Best Ad of the Day

A beautiful new short film for iconic South African salt brand Cerebos has been featured on the top advertising sites around the world including Shots and Adforum, and was named World’s Best Ad of the Day by the prestigious AdWeek.

SAPeople followers, Lyndall Vanderyacht told SAPeople: “My brother from Durban just made this beautiful Cerebos Salt Ad. It’s adorable and they were selected this week as the Worlds Best Ad Of The Day. A big achievement for a small Durban Company!”

Durban ad agency FCB’s animated spot for Cerebos – their first commercial in 20 years – was touted by Shots as just the ticket for “something to get you over hump day”.

The animated short film is called ‘Snow’ and tells the story of Mpho, a little girl who dreams of snow, despite living in the Karoo. Her grandparents intervene to help her dream come true – with a little help from South Africa’s favourite salt brand, who sponsored the short film through agency FCB Durban.

It took a team of three four weeks to put together the miniature set, as just building the lounge required 24 different types of material and 31 loose items were created just to dress the kitchen.

Director Ree Treweek says they particularly enjoyed coming up with the touches for the set that were truly South African, like pumpkins drying out on the red roof of the Karoo farm house; dishwashing liquid in the kitchen reminiscent of Sunlight; old ginger beer bottles typically found in farmsteads; and a coat hanger being used as the TV aerial.

Ree says they also had a lot of fun set-decorating the exterior shots. “The textured ground was a mixture of sand, tiny pebbles and tea! We then added hundreds of tiny sprigs of rosemary that lead up to the larger bushes that were created with moss died different colours.”

“We couldn’t be happier with the result,” says FCB Durban creative director, Brandon Govender. “We wanted something out of the ordinary and decided it simply had to be animated. Tulips and Chimneys are the best [animators] in the business, and we’ve truly enjoyed working with them to bring the characters and story to life. It’s been a real labour of love for all involved.”

In a social media update this week, FCB Durban shared a post about their ad from ‘Best Ads on TV’ and said: “Our little African story is making a name for itself overseas.” Make that a BIG name!