eBay UK : Fantastic Beasts

The Fun Stuff

The opportunity to work with eBay and Warner Bros on the second Fantastic Beasts movie separated the muggles from the magical at Rubber, and inspired us to create a magical experience for some young superfans, whilst helping sell exclusive product to raise money for J.K.Rowling’s Lumos charity.

To capture some genuine magic, the project was all staged for real one autumn evening. We took over film location Lacock Abbey, setting for the Hogwarts cloisters amongst other things, and secretly brought some unsuspecting young superfans in under the cover of darkness for a “magic lesson”. Harry Potter influencer Cherry Wallace greeted them in full costume, and proceeded to give them official Fantastic Beasts wands, and show them some spells before taking them into the dark abbey where, thanks to some signifiant hidden light rigging by top lighting designer Tim Routledge, their magic was brought to life before their eyes.

The film culminates in a magical finale and congratulatory message from a member of the cast, projected onto the outside of the spectacularly lit up building, and rests largely on the amazed reactions of the superfans to what unfolded before them. Thankfully they were suitably excited their spells worked, and stunned when a character from the movie popped up with a special message for them.

The Serious Bit

The project resulted in a full suite of social assets, from a full length 3 minute film which captured the whole experience for social channels (gaining 5.3 million views on FB, Instagram and Snapchat) as well as bespoke landscape, square and portrait video content for separate Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter campaigns. Additional supporting versions were run on VOD platforms Teads, Fandom, Mobsta and Captify to an audience of 3.9 million.

On top of this, a 30 second cinema spot was created using the most epic moments, and run UK wide in all cinema’s in the run up to the release of the movie, resulting in 3 million additional views of the magical experience.

The project promoted the merchandise partnership between Warner Bros and eBay, but specifically highlighted an exclusive pin badge designed to raise money for J.K.Rowling’s charity Lumos, which supports children from disadvantaged backgrounds.