A new festive campaign from Greater Anglia encourages audiences to get out, explore and embrace the Christmas spirit when things don’t go to plan at home.

The humorous campaign, ‘Christmas Lights’, has been created by Atomic London and sees the return of the Greater Anglia Red Hare who encourages a family to take a Christmas journey with Greater Anglia. 

Taking inspiration from Chevy Chase’s Christmas lights disaster in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, the spot focuses on a family putting up their Christmas lights. Gathered outside in the cold, the family wait for their new lights to switch on only to find that ‘Hello Father Christmas’ reads ‘Hello Fa-r-t’ due to dodgy electrics. Luckily, the Greater Anglia Red Hare is not far away and nods to the Mother giving her a dose of inspiration. She turns to her family and takes them on a journey to see some proper Christmas lights. Using Greater Anglia trains, the family explore London and get involved in the magical festive activities the city has to offer.

The 30-second film was directed by Ivan Bird of Missing Link Films and is set to the soundtrack ‘I won’t let it die’ by US hip-hop act Ugly Duckling.

The campaign takes a two-pronged approach seeking to inspire a broad audience of existing train users to choose Greater Anglia for their festive travel, while targeting families with children aged 5 to 16 through more focused activity. 

The campaign is running across TV, cinema, radio, out-of-home, social and digital channels. Media planning and buying is by Bicycle.

The campaign is part of a new creative platform ‘It’s Great Out There’, positioning Greater Anglia as a gateway to great experiences. The brand is striving to inspire audiences with experience and using the Red Hare device as a to follow.