Serviceplan Campaign and Penny may well have outdone themselves. Their 2022 Christmas film, The Rift, is highly topical again and no less emotional than its Cannes Grand Prix predecessor, The Wish. It is a very powerful 4-minute plea against the divisions within society, that uses a crumbling apartment building as a visual metaphor of the cracks in society and some brilliant directing decisions by Seb Edwards to intensify the impact of its message. Silent Night plays softly in the background, but all festive understanding of each other seems to be missing. Until the film reaches a climax with a main character (a teen boy again) extending an olive branch to his elderly neighbour by saying, Let’s talk. The film was produced by Anorak Film.
“At our PENNY markets, all kinds of people come together. This year, however, we noticed people moving apart more than ever. Different opinions not only divide society, they also cause rifts in our private relationships,” stated Marcus Haus, divisional marketing manager at PENNY. “That’s why it was especially close to our hearts to do our part to help notice and ideally mend the rifts in our society. This requires dialogue instead of confrontation and ignorance – and this is exactly where our campaign comes in.”
Christoph Everke, creative managing director of Serviceplan Campaign, added, “We’ve loaded our Christmas film with cultural and social themes that really no one can ignore. Opinions clash and literally break an entire apartment block apart. The topics are taken from real life and portrayed so relentlessly that you can’t help but feel caught out. The film gives you goosebumps, a feeling of uneasiness and hopefully makes you rethink. I’m deeply impressed by the way Seb Edwards and ANORAK have brought our idea to life – and by the courage the Penny team has once again shown in making a painful yet important subject theirs.”
The digital extension of the campaign picks up on the idea of dialogue and makes it a reality. In cooperation with the Forum für Streitkultur (Forum for Culture of Debate) and with further information material from the Initiative Offene Gesellschaft (Open Society Initiative), the landing page, penny.de/lassreden, provides ten concrete tips for constructive discussions. In addition, from the time of the film’s release, influencer and presenter, Jonas Ems, will be drawing attention to the film’s conflict topics and how we encounter them in everyday life via his high-reach social media channels TikTok and YouTube.
The Penny Christmas film is running on Penny’s YouTube, Facebook and Instagram channels and will also be shown in full length in German cinemas. It will be supported in digital and print, paid and owned, out of home and in Penny’s own advertising materials.
Credits
Client: Penny Markt
Dr. Stefan Görgens: COO
Marcus Haus: Bereichsleiter Marketing
Werner Hesse Quack: Head of Brand Marketing
Thomas Raupach: Head of Digital Marketing
Friederike Pater: Senior Digital Marketing Managerin
Agency: Serviceplan Campaign
Christoph Everke: Managing Director
Michael Jaeger: Managing Partner
Moritz Dornig: Creative Director
Matthias Schuster: Creative Director
Katharina King: Copywriter
Alessia Scheffler: Junior Account Manager
Frederike Striege: Account Director
Marén Echtermeyer: Freelance Account Management
Aisha Blackwell: NEVEREST GmbH & Co Kg Executive Producer
Jennifer Meisels: Freelance / Producer
Production Company: ANORAK Film
Service Production: ICON films
Seb Edwards: Director
Kasper Tuxen: DOP
Kave Quinn: Production Design
Fritzi Ngenci: Costume Design
Offline Edit: TRIM
VFX Studio: TIME BASED ARTS
Adi Popescu: SFX Supervisor
Stephen Grasso: VFX Supervisor
Tom Lindsay: Editor
Nicolas Becker: Sound Design
Ken Yasumoto: Sound Mix
Ben Lukas Boysen: Music
Christoph Petzenhauser: Executive Producer
Björn Krüger-Levy: Producer
Alex Molea: Service Producer
Julia Todorow: Casting
