Singing turkey, pensive Santa - best festive projects by YunoJuno freelancers

It’s the most wonderful time of the year for businesses looking to get into the festive spirit. From October, brands start releasing their often fun, catchy and rather memorable adverts covering anything from Black Friday and Christmas. 

For freelancers working on these campaigns, the hard work started in the summer, planning, projecting and creating some of the most festive— and arguably fun - work of the year. As we’re nearing the end of the year, we wanted to celebrate some of the projects that YunoJuno freelancers have been involved in.

We asked some of our freelance community to share their best festive projects from their clients, for our round-up of festive projects from 2022. From singing turkeys to cooking puns and emotive charity videos, it’s fair to say these were some rather varied briefs! 

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A Tear-jerking Father Christmas Story For Charity 

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It wouldn’t be a festive project without featuring Father Christmas himself, so when freelance Senior Creative Director, Simon Diss, was creating his tear-jerker charity advert, who better to feature than the main man? 

The brief for Simon and the creative team was to help increase donations for the London child poverty charity, the Childhood Trust, with The Big Give Christmas Challenge. The premise of the video, as Simon shares, “was to show that for many children, Christmas is anything but a fairy tale.”

The final result was a festive video that cut through the often cheery seasonal mood, revealing the story of a father struggling to support his family in unflinching detail. As Simon describes:

“It’s a proper heartfelt piece that really brings home the brutal reality for many during a time when fun and cheer are typically forced upon us.”

And with such a moving video, it’s no surprise the campaign was a real success for the Childhood Trust, as Simon shared the results of their hard work: “The content film raised an impressive £1.9 million for the Childhood Trust”.

With so much pressure on people throughout Christmas, as the advert highlights, it’s no surprise that it was a real hit for the charity. 

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Creating Copy For Black Friday’s Biggest Marketplace Seller 

Black Friday is the busiest shopping day of the year for retailers on and offline so working on a Black Friday project is a big festive deal. 

For SEO Copywriter and YunoJuno freelancer, Emily Wood, the chance to work with one of the most renowned kitchens and homeware brand, Joseph Joseph, over their busiest period was a no-brainer: “I absolutely love browsing the Black Friday sales and working with a homeware brand I also love made it even better! I worked on their Amazon product pages, social posts and email comms for both Black Friday and Christmas."

"Thanks to the ‘insider tips’ I’ve also treated myself to some of their great gadgets in the sale too!”

Planning Black Friday sales and Christmas communications start way before November can feel like overkill but preparing a month’s worth of content across multiple channels takes time: “I’ve really loved working with the Joseph Joseph team on their social content and Christmas emails- I’ve even managed to shoe in some great puns which are worth subscribing to their emails alone, right!?”

Catching shoppers at the right time takes some planning which is why many brands like to get ahead!

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Singing Turkeys For Possibly The Earliest Christmas Advert Ever!

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Is it even a Christmas advert without a gimmick or two? We think not! And the next submission from Freelance Creative Film and Video Producer, Rita Noronha Santos, is packed full of cheer and festive gimmicks!

Working on what has to be one of the earliest Christmas adverts ever, Rita shared her involvement: “I produced this rather fun, festive advert with the team at Sting Films, creating the animation in-house, which is part of the team at the ad agency TBWA Manchester branch.”

The brief from Park, a pre-order website, was to advertise their Christmas Savings campaign in advance, giving shoppers a whole year to buy and pay off their gifts for 2023.

Rita worked on and produced their festive TV advert for Christmas 2023 which you can see in all its singing turkey glory here. It’s certainly one you won’t forget for a while and it’s possibly the earliest 2023 Christmas advert you’ll see this year!

Creating an Emotive Christmas advert 

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As Simon reminded us, Christmas is a difficult time for many and for all the projects full of silliness, there are some more poignant and important ones too. Freelance digital designer and photographer, Rachel Lipsitz, worked on another powerful charity video that reminds us how important having a home is, as she shares:

‍“It’s important to raise awareness at this time of year that homelessness still very much exists”.

Working on the animations and display adverts for the homeless charity, St Martin in the Fields, Rachel created a clever and hard-hitting short video of all the things we appreciate at Christmas time that start with having a home: “From a creative aspect, I built the videos and the display ads for the campaign as well as collaborated on the concept with the writer and producer.”

You can watch the full video Rachel created across the St Martin In The Field’s social media channels and here. 

Have you worked on a festive project in your freelance career so far?

Why not join YunoJuno (if you haven’t already) to find a great freelance gig - Xmas related or otherwise!

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