Blinkink score with a fiery claymation advert for the Women’s Euros 2025

Having developed cartoon shows for Netflix and a new iteration of Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared for Channel 4, the production studio Blinkink flexes its creative muscles across live-action puppetry, 2D, CG, stop-motion, and even AI animation. But for BBC’s upcoming and highly anticipated UEFA Women’s Euros Championship, Blinkink decided to continue its strong relationship with claymation in order to capture the kinetic wizardry of high-stakes football. It’s Nice That spoke to Bart Yates, executive producer, and Rebecca Little, lead producer, about what it took to create such a laborious, colourful and exciting advertising campaign for Britain’s biggest broadcasting channel.

“We have a long history with claymation, it’s always been one of our favourite animation techniques and probably one of the most influential mediums for everyone who works here,” says Bart. Sharing a love for classic MTV bumpers and Will Vinton’s California Raisins ads, Blinkink wanted to cement its championing of claymation. Director Nicos Livesey, who was behind BritBox’s 14-hours-long one-shot advert, returns with Blinkink to tear up the game of football in his distinctive and imaginative style. The brief was simple – to make an action-packed, dynamic and brilliantly playful world, all built purely from clay.

“Stop-motion takes a long time to shoot, even when it’s quite simple,” says Bart. “So when it’s super complex, it’s a constant battle to try and figure out shortcuts and tricks, to find ways to get things done quicker.” Blinkink were able to make the laborious process slightly easier by sourcing stars from UK’s unique claymation industry such as Wes Anderson collaborator Andy Biddle to Andy Spradbury who made the puppets for Aardman Studio’s Chicken Run. “The puppets’ faces were also a real challenge to animate in clay” says Rebecca. “They were incredibly tiny and detailed so every time a player needed to have a change in expression it would take hours for the sculptors to resculpt the faces.” Centering the names of this year’s upcoming footballer stars, it was important that the stars of the advert were recognisable as well as their visual metaphors, each athlete’s signature skills communicated through fireball goals and melted faces from pure velocity. “Through this campaign and the BBC’s coverage of the Women’s Euro, we hope to help close the gender fame gap and make these amazing female athletes household names,” says BBC Creative’s creative director, Jess Oudot.

“In a time when AI is reshaping so much of the creative world, we wanted to go in the opposite direction – producing something tactile, raw and handcrafted,” says Bart. “It’s physical, full of character and energy – in many ways, just like football.” When creating the advert, the Aitana Bonmatí sequence really stood out. A flurry of animation techniques reflect Bonmatí’s own technical skills in a segment that sees opponents left twisted in their own clay-limbs from the footballer’s sharp turns and pro footwork. “We had to make a special head mounted camera rig to shoot the reference clip and then find a way to rig the clay puppet’s head to the stop motion camera when we were filming it,” says Rebecca. The ad secures Blinkink’s reputation as the absolute top of its game, along with the star-studded line-up of this year’s biggest event in women’s sports.