Smyths' Catalog Springs to Life as a Creature Made of Toys

Watch it cough up Pikachu and slime!

What kid wouldn’t want a playful monster made of toys as their new best friend? And if it vomits slime and Pikachu, all the better.

In Ireland, Smyths Toy Superstores brings this benevolent, barfing beastie to life, repping its catalog in a style designed to subvert traditional holiday marketing.

The work from Accenture Song agency Droga5 Dublin, Gabha Studios and Hungrymnan director Alex Roberts combines elements of Halloween commercials (a strange creature) with Xmas spirit (so many toys!). Breaking this week, the campaign packs a fresh approach that should stoke Smyths’ seasonal appeal ahead of the EOY gifting rush.

That CGI critter boasts 700 elements—some from familiar IPs, others not. Its game-ball knees and cars-for-shoes are especially rad. Those rocket-ship ears just rock—and Buzz Lightyear makes the perfect chest ornament.

“The Smyths Toys’ catalog is pretty special,” says agency CCO Jen Speirs. “Kids can’t wait for it to arrive and treat it like their best friend for a few months of the year. So, we thought, why not make it into an actual best friend? Our toy-ful, joyful new character is something we’ll keep coming back to.”

This approach feels bang on brand and especially true to Smyths’ youthful audience. For them, the volume’s 300+ pages contain endless possibilities.

The notion of toys as objects of wonder for kids, though clichéd, is timeless and true. What’s more, beloved playthings can become forever companions. Some special part of our youth lives on in a favorite game, doll or action figure long after we’ve ceased playing with them. (Though let’s be honest, some of us never do.) So, there’s nostalgic appeal here for adults as well. And for the most part, they’re the ones buying.

And of course, marketers love crafting monsters (as long as they help move merch and services). It’s a tried-and-true audience pleaser that can spark compelling visuals and elevated scope.

Some examples include…

• Tesco’s friendly fruit-and-veg giant from a few months back who’s all about eating healthy.
• Progressive’s sticky notes colossus, adding a sense of (vaguely menacing) whimsy to the small-business space.
• Ikea’s “Stuff Monster,” a sustainability metaphor with kaiju attitude.

Here, Speirs unpacks the creative strategy:

So, you’re looking to go beyond a traditional holiday campaign?

This absolutely isn’t just a Christmas ad. The objective was to create a new long-term brand platform for Smyths. The campaign idea was to capture the unique relationship between a kid and their Smyths catalog, likening the catalog to a 6-ft clumsy, lovable best friend made from hundreds and hundreds of toys. While this has been launched in the pre-Christmas period, we want to see more of this amazing character all throughout the year.

Where’d the creature concept come from?

The idea came from kids themselves. They absolutely love it when the catalog drops because they get to start imagining what it would be like to have this toy or that one or the other one—or maybe that one! Some of them circle their favorites, dog-ear the corners, add post-its. It’s almost like this brand asset is already something they love to play with. So, the team came up with the idea to bring that to life. But monster?! No way. The Christmas catalog (or CC as it became affectionately known) is a new best friend.

Tell us about the F/X.

We started with a lot of character ideation and then built on that with a 3D model that we shot for the catalog cover. Then we shot a real person in a padded suit so we could build real movement to the character and also have him interacting with the kids—and the dog! This also allowed us to capture a lot of real footage that we could then overlay with our amazing new catalog character.

It’s just believable enough, and warmer than AI.

Our post partners, Gabha, brought the magic. They were obsessed with making it feel as real as possible. From the way he walked to the way he blinked, burped and sneezed, no stone was left unturned in animation and render. And that painstaking commitment to the craft really lifted the quality of the work to a phenomenal level.

Was it tough to integrate the live action and fantastical goings on?

While we always knew who the star of the show would be, getting great performances from our brother and sister was so important. To do that, we threw them in front of a very funny, trained dancer and acrobat dressed in a giant, weird-looking padded suit. And it worked like a charm. Their responses felt natural. On set, there was lots of genuine laughter and energy. I think it would have been much harder to get that if the kids had to look at a ball on a stick and imagine for the whole shoot.