Insurance software vendor unwraps the magic
We’ve been overwhelmed by the support for “The Gift of Time” – our generative-AI Christmas ad about poor Lloyd Binder, stuck at his desk on Christmas Eve. We’ve been so grateful for all of the coverage and engagement we’ve received and wanted to pull back the festive curtain and reveal the process behind making something like this – and it was definitely a labour of love!
Behind the scenes of “The Gift of Time” is a meticulous blend of AI-driven innovation and hands-on human creativity. The journey was as unique as the final result, involving storytelling, musical composition, visual artistry, and a lot of trial and error.
What it takes to build a Christmas Advert
Step 1: Writing the Lyrics
We began with the heart of the ad: the song. While we wrote the lyrics ourselves, we used ChatGPT as a creative tool, almost like a thesaurus, to refine phrasing and ensure the rhythm flowed naturally. It wasn’t quite iambic pentameter, but we were intentional about tracking the natural cadence of the words to create something both memorable and melodic. Insurance software vendor or not – we like to think we have a way with words and this was a chance to show off our creative chops.
Step 2: Storyboarding the Narrative
With the lyrics complete, we hand-drew a storyboard that mapped out Lloyd’s journey. Every scene was designed to follow the emotional arc of the song and connect with viewers in a meaningful way, showing the problem he faced, the future he dreamt of and the solution to getting there. The latter of course cultimates in a certain insurance software vendor showing up to save the day. This step helped us visualise how each moment of the story would translate into animation.
Step 3: Crafting the Song
We brainstormed how the soundtrack should sound, drawing inspiration from iconic Christmas campaigns like John Lewis and Coca-Cola. This included:
Identifying key prompts to reflect our desired vocal style, instruments, pacing, and genre.
Feeding these prompts—and the lyrics—into Suno, a text-to-music generator.
After hundreds of iterations (yes, hundreds!), Suno finally produced the song you hear today—a perfect blend of festive warmth and emotional resonance.
Step 4: Building the Characters and Scenes
For visuals, we turned to MidJourney’s text-to-image generation to create our key characters, including Lloyd.
We selected a visual style that could be consistently replicated across scenes.
Adjusting character weighting prompts allowed us to fine-tune likenesses.
We created still images of the entire cast and their environments.
These initial designs were polished and adjusted in Adobe Photoshop to align with our storyboard.
Step 5: Bringing It to Life
Using RunwayML, a powerful text-to-video tool, we animated the scenes in several ways:
Feeding still images and adjusting camera movements for subtle animations.
Providing keyframes for the start and end of scenes, while describing the actions that should happen in between.
Using RunwayML’s “Act-One” feature to capture our own facial expressions and transpose them onto the characters for greater authenticity.
Step 6: Editing the Final Cut
Once all the footage was ready, we imported everything into Wondershare Filmora for editing. This is where the story truly came together:
We added transitions, effects, and carefully timed cuts to ensure the narrative flowed seamlessly.
Entire new scenes, like the nativity scene, were added late in the process to enhance the story.
Made some of the scenes, for want of a better phrase…snowier.
And before any pro-editors out there mention it – yes, I know I should be using Adobe Premiere or similar, but I just went with the most lightweight tool I was already familiar with so I could get it all done quickly. Remember, we are but an insurance software vendor, so the quicker we could execute on this, the better.
Step 7: Subtitles and Branding
For the finishing touches, we used Veed to create branded subtitles for the song. Subtitles were styled in line with our brand and meticulously timed to match the lyrics.
The Final Result
After weeks of refining, obsessing, and tweaking, “The Gift of Time” was complete—a testament to what’s possible when technology amplifies human creativity. This process demonstrates not only the power of AI as a creative tool but also the potential for small teams to achieve big-budget results with a little thinking outside of the box. By combining innovation and imagination, we were able to craft a Christmas ad that resonates with audiences and tells a story that’s uniquely ours, without getting an angry CFO calling the marketing department with serious questions. Go on, give it a try and see if you can’t create something magical this Christmas!
