Canadian Real Estate Association Aims High

Location! Location! Location! isn't particularly high on the checklist of must-haves for the prospective home buyers we meet in spots breaking today from the Canadian Real Estate Association.

They have more elevated needs on their minds, bigger issues for CREA to address. These folks are taller than average. Quite a bit so. Lucky for them, CREA's pros are up for a challenge. To belabor the wordplay: They really rise to the occasion.

Unlike the protagonists, the humor from agency No Fixed Address and director Pep Bosch never goes over the top. Everything seems just a tad askew, but not zany, which feels right for the category.

"The insight that informed the creative was straightforward—every buyer or seller is a unique human being with unique needs, quirks and personality," Zach Klein, agency EVP and head of strategy, tells Muse. "From there, we focused on simplicity and wrapped it with exaggeration and charm to make the story more compelling."

Actors Max Norman and Pascale Wilson, 6'6" and 6'2" respectively, deliver towering performances (oof!), as CREA shows how its goes the extra mile (or a few more feet) to ensure satisfaction.

"We knew that casting would be the most important part of making this story work, so we saw many tall people," recalls No Fixed Address ECD Stuart Macmillan. "After a few callbacks, it became clear that it was less important how tall they were and more important how tall they could look on camera—long limbs, angular features, etc. The couple we landed on were both great improv talents and had wonderfully expressive faces, but they weren’t excessively tall."

Well, 6'6" is pretty impressive, you know?

"The locations were also crucial because it is a story told in two parts: The struggle to find a place that fits and the search for the perfect home," Macmillan says. "We needed some locations that felt like average Canadian homes, and then a series of more unique, tall places that could realistically be the perfect home for our family. We prioritized bungalows in the first half to emphasize the height of the actors, and then obviously had some fun with lighthouses and barns in the second half."

Throughout filming, "We wanted to achieve as much as possible in camera by shooting plates and switching lenses to ensure that this felt like a real family making a real human connection," he says. 

To that end, "The production team constructed 10 different setups in the studio, with smaller versions of kitchens and bathrooms, allowing the actors to bump into each other and awkwardly avoid light fixtures and squeeze through door frames. This physicality gives the film its charm, lifting it out of a CGI world and making it feel more natural and interesting."

Along with TV ads, the push includes OOH, digital and influencer outreach.

CREDITS

Client: The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA)
Creative Agency: No Fixed Address
Production: Revolver 
Production: Gatehouse Commercials 
VFX & Online: The Vanity
Audio and Original Composition: Berkeley
Editorial: Nimiopere