Levi’s holiday commercial, Let’s Get Fuzzy, is a handmade stop-motion adventure, starring a large and hairy Fuzzyeti, known as Gus, who finds community, acceptance and fuzzy sweaters after stumbling upon a remote cabin. The outfits in the ad replicate pieces from Levi’s holiday collection. The commercial recalls the brand’s 1995 commercial, Clayman, the brand’s first global commercial and the first full-length spot completely shot in Claymation.

It was a labour of love for BlinkInk directing duo, Stevie Gee and Essy May. The mammoth undertaking took over six and a half weeks. A six-person build team spent more than 2,000 hours crafting and painting the sets, including three cabins at different scales and 400 individually made miniature trees. The 60-second spot required four hours of filming for each second of animation. No AI was used.

“We have included a few nods to previous Levi’s heritage commercials that might be fun to spot. We’d love these characters to have more adventures together, they are clearly great friends, it does feel like they need their own sitcom,” Gee and May commented.

The campaign launched two days after Halloween and combines Christmas aesthetics spooky season vibes in its framing and soundtrack choice.

“Never have we ever had so much creative freedom from the start of a commercial project.” Gee and May added. “We wrote around 14 different scripts before landing the final concept, and then further developed that story together with Levi’s. Landing the message of Let’s Get Fuzzy was a truly collaborative process. A cold cabin in the woods where five beautifully dressed friends are terrorised by a mythical yeti…. It felt like a wild card option, but we were thrilled it was the one that got chosen. We are both massive horror fans so it was a real treat to really push the genre in the final film.”

“Our Levi’s Let’s Get Fuzzy campaign was an opportunity to experiment with immersive and tactile world-building,” commented Kenny Mitchell, global CMO at Levi’s. “Anchored by a film created entirely with stop-motion claymation, it’s also the celebration of the craft and human creativity synonymous with the Levi’s brand.”

Credits
Production Company: Blink / Blinkink
Directors: Stevie & Essy
Executive Producers: Bart Yates & Josef Byrne
Head of Production: Alex Halley
Producers: Rebecca Little & Adriana Piasek-Wanski
Production Manager: Calum O’Toole
1st AD: Sandy Liddle
Director of Photography: Toby Howell
1st AC: George Warren

Client: Levi Strauss & Co.
Chief Marketing Officer, Kenny Mitchell, Jenny Fewell
Creatives: Chad Hinson & Renée Perdomo
Marketing Team:  Anne Cambria & Rachel Sundberg
Copywriters: Robin Lenhart & Courtney Vincent
Art Director, Sarah Harris
Directors of Brand Marketing, Rashad Drakeford & Josh Farrell
Producer: Rena Fink
Stylists: Michael Giordano  & Sharon Maloney
Project Manager: Tess O’Dwyer
Assistant Manager: Elizabeth Swarm

Post Production & VFX: Blink / Blinkink
VFX Supervisor: John Malcolm Moore

Grade: Black Kite Studios
Colourist: Tom Mangham
Producer: Carla Thomas
Music & Sound: Fitzrovia Post
Sound Designer: Jonny Allan