Thatchers Cider and Aardman collaborate on new campaign

Thatchers Cider are back in the studio with multi Academy Award-winning studio Aardman for the next chapter of their pint-sized perfection advertising campaign.

Airing for the first time this weekend, the new series of commercials celebrate the nation’s passion for sport, with the pint-sized models adapting their cider making skills to try their hand at football and cricket.

The adverts, which will go live on sports channels from 18 May 2024 during the Premier League season climax weekend, use stop motion animation to bring viewers through the barn doors of Thatchers’ Myrtle Farm.

The adverts will run across the FA Cup Final and UEFA Euro 2024 tournament as well as the women’s Euro 2025 qualifiers.

The commercials are directed by award-winning talent Magdelena Osinska at Aardman studios in Bristol who says: “What makes Thatchers and Aardman such a perfect match is not just our shared west country heritage, but how we both marry traditional techniques with modern technology to achieve perfection.

“To bring our characters to life we blend traditional stop motion animation with state-of-the-art visual effects. At Thatchers they use their 120 years of expertise, coupled with state-of-the-art technology to create the perfect pint.”

With total dedication to their craft, it took a team of 34 people to bring the pint-sized world to life. Using puppets based on the Thatchers family and real people working at the farm, the animators shoot around two seconds of film a day.

“Working with Aardman is a dream come true," said Martin Thatcher, fourth generation cider maker and star of the ads. "We’re two South West businesses, filled with slightly obsessed perfectionists, that have used their attention to detail to become world leaders in their crafts.

“Down on the family farm we’ve been making cider with nothing but love for four generations and 120 years. It’s our dedicated attention to detail that delivers the perfect pint. It could only be Aardman, a company that shares the total commitment to painstaking perfection and is renowned for bringing joy to people’s lives, that could bring Thatchers to life in such an entertaining and heart-warming way.”

The commercial will be part of a multi-media campaign including linear TV, video on demand, cinema and YouTube. This will be enhanced by outdoor advertising and a consumer focussed social media campaign running across the summer.