Mulberry features ‘kidult’ cast in Christmas ad campaign

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Nov 15, 2016

British luxury accessories brand Mulberry has followed up last year’s controversial Christmas ad campaign with a cute and quirky offer for 2016, featuring a cast of child actors playing adults.

Directed by Albert Moya and written by Hugo Guinness (who penned the story for hit movie 'The Grand Budapest Hotel'), the latest Mulberry ad is called 'It’s What’s Inside That Counts'.

It tells the story of a traditional British family at Christmas with bickering sisters, a mother who finds fault with everyone and a brother with a secret.

But, it all ends happily after Rose decides to give away her much-prized, brand new Mulberry Bayswater bag to her sister. Despite the leftover wrapping paper it comes in, she says it’s what’s inside that counts.

Rose is played by Beau Gadson, who also starred in 'Rogue One: A Star Wars Story', with her sister Camilla played by Darcey Brown Sutton who appeared in The Railway Children'.

Shot at West Horsley Place in Surrey, the brand’s creative director Johnny Coca said that “when I was a kid, all that I wanted to do was to be grown up so I could be like my dad. Now that I am an adult, I just want to be a kid again. Christmas brings out the kid in all of us, and this is what I love about using children to tell our story this year.”

Interestingly, Mulberry isn't revealing its full Christmas hand in one go with the current ad just being part 1 and the second part due later in the month, possibly focusing on a big reveal for the brother with the secret.

Last year the company caused controversy with its Christmas campaign when its film replicated a nativity scene around the Bayswater bag. It garnered enough complaints for the Advertising Standards Authority to launch an investigation. However, it was later cleared of being blasphemous.