Grey London enlists Pencil Bandit to animate quirky branded stings for E4

Pencil Bandit has illustrated and animated a series of eight branded stings for E4, for use throughout the summer, as part of Grey London’s on-going repositioning campaign for Orangina, C’est Shook.

A mere ten seconds in length the irreverent stings make quite an impression. French waiters play a game of volleyball while pensioners in a retirement home play a game of spin the bottle in the short vignettes, which debut on E4 this week.

Created by Pencil Bandit the process was, “a total one-bandit operation, from designs to storyboards, animation to voices. Everything is hand-drawn and animated frame-by-frame, so there are a couple of little flourishes and silly touches that people can spot as they zip by,” he says. “All the big-wigs have been straight-up ace in letting me do my own thing within their big old brands.”

“The brilliantly quirky Pencil Bandit was the perfect person to bring our ideas to life…as was the partnership with E4 itself, another brand that, like Orangina, likes to behave slightly differently,” says Grey London creative director Darren Wright.

The stings form the latest aspect of Grey’s campaign for Orangina, which launched last autumn. The first instalment consisted of zany pastel-palette live action vignettes which burst to life when pervaded by the signature orange of the soft drink. Now, Grey has moved the campaign towards animation. Natasha Sales, senior planner for the Orangina campaign, explains, “We wanted to use animation for the stings as it felt like a medium where we could have a lot of fun to really bring out the brand’s playfulness and make the shake famous in a quirky, eye-catching way.”

E Stings are an initiative started in 2005 by E4 “to nurture and develop new talent in exciting and innovative ways,” explain the channel. The C’est Shook stings however represent the first time E4 has featured advertising in their characteristic, creative-lead idents.

“4Sales wanted to find the right partner for E4’s first ever branded stings and Orangina and the C’est Shook campaign proved to be the perfect fit. E Stings have a reputation for being innovative so we’re delighted with Orangina’s quirky take and we’re sure they will appeal to E4 viewers.”

Grey and E4 selected Pencil Bandit on the basis of his strong previous entries to the E Stings competition run by the channel each year, where he made the final shortlist twice. “So when they asked me to pitch proper for a whole series of stings with the trademark Orangina shake, it was a no-brainer,” says Pencil Bandit.