Brooke Bond, owner of PG Tips, has commissioned Bristol-based Aardman Animations -- the company behind Academy Award-winner Nick Park's Wallace and Gromit -- to create Tom, Maggie, Pete and Holly, named the T-Birds, who will make their on-screen debut during Coronation Street on January 14.
PG Tips hopes the four birds, which will recreate a typical household of 20-something housemates, will give a more modern outlook for the brand than the apes, which have ruled the roost since 1956. The ads were created by BMP DDB and will also run as press and poster executions.
Aardman's Animations are famous for the early 1990's Heat Electric campaign featuring Creature Comfort figures, including tortoises and penguins. The ads were voted the fourth-best campaign of all time by Channel 4 viewers, behind Guinness, Smash and Tango.
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