Moosli on the menu

The commercial, done by the same duo behind the Klipdrift ads, director Etienne de Villiers and producer Herman le Roux, tells the story of a farmer and his old cow friend having a casual chat whilst the farmer is enjoying his Nature's Source muesli. The cow tries to guess what the farmer is eating, and despite getting amazingly close to guessing the right name, the farmer corrects her every time and dismisses her efforts.

The Jupiter Drawing Room creative director Darren McKay said the concept for the campaign was to move away from the comfortable image that is usually associated with cereal ads. The idea was to maximize brand exposure for Nature's Source, whilst grabbing the attention of the consumer: "We had to create something memorable while keeping the concept relevant to the brand, in a plethora of cereal advertisers, each vying for that unforgettable something in the minds of consumers."

The postproduction SFX were done by Sam Hencher, a flame artist at The Refinery in Cape Town: "It was no easy task. We used 2D animation as apposed to 3D generated images, manipulating the real movements of the cow to simulate the talking instead of completely recreating it in CGI.

"To make her talk we made her chew and then used the mouth movements in post production to make it look like she was talking, but we battled to get a moo out of her, which was crucial for the commercial and for post SFX. We tried every trick in the book, with the help of Schoongezicht Jerseys herd manager, Rob Slater, but she turned out to be a real model, she looked beautiful but she ignored me flat.

"It was also quite difficult to find the right cow voice and the right way to treat that voice. What worked best in the end was to use a normal adult voice, as if trying out new words for the first time, not aiming to sound like a cow."