"Bubbles"

18 December 2025

60s

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble... but worth it.

You get the feeling watching this beautiful commercial for Center Parcs that it must have been incredibly difficult to accomplish. Perhaps only marginally less difficult than creating actual soap bubbles and manipulating them through a forest! Sometimes, when we compare the degree of difficulty with the outcome, the effort can feel questionable... but not here. The effect is mesmerising and, more importantly, provides an effective metaphor for the restfulness the brand wants to associate with spending time there.

If it hasn't happened already, it's only a matter of time before some tosspot on LinkedIn tries to demonstrate how this could have been made using AI in less than an hour (including the time that it took him to prepare and eat a Pot Noodle between prompts). The resulting film will, of course, be utterly soulless but as the person making it will also be soulless, and his friends heaping praise upon it will be similarly afflicted, he will remain blissfully unaware of how shit it is.

What's especially clever about this idea, from agency Neverland, is the way it enables Center Parcs to be depicted as a serene provider of peace, even as it makes clear that it is also somewhere brimming with activity. This is a circle that can't really be squared, but this ad cleverly manages to suggest an unlikely balance. And, as if that's not enough, it contains a tacit reassurance for users of a certain mobile phone network that they will still be able to receive calls in the middle of the woods!

UK

Resorts / Holiday Entertainments