29 August 2024

Our first television advert: Behind-the-scenes!

A woman and a toddler watch a pony grazing in his paddock through the fence.

Over the summer, you may have seen Redwings’ first ever television advert pop-up on your screens!

Being our 40th anniversary year, we’ve been a trying a few new things, especially projects that have focussed on helping to raise funds and awareness of our work.

Television advertising is a very exciting development for us, but as we all know, it is very difficult times for charities right now and we remain vigilant and prudent as ever with our costs.

For this reason, we have kept the broadcast of the advert to very limited areas, but it hasn’t stopped many of our supporters from spotting it!

Since July, when the advert was first aired, we have been inundated by comments over the phone, through social media and from visitors at our centres who have seen and enjoyed it.

If you have yet to see the advert, it was shot at our Caldecott visitor centre and encourages people to think of supporting Redwings through sponsoring one of our Adoption Stars and showcases the wonderful day out families can enjoy at our centres.

The advert was voiced by Dame Joanna Lumley who kindly provided her services for free.

In the space of a few short weeks, we have had people come through our doors telling us how they had never heard of Redwings before seeing the advert, and the number of supporters sponsoring our rescued horses and donkeys has sharply risen.

You can see it for yourself below!

A still from the Redwings advert showing a woman smiling at a donkey which is poking its head through its fence.

Peek behind-the-scenes!

Now, we know what you must be thinking… ‘Who is that family enjoying their day out at Redwings?’

Spoiler alert; it’s me! My name is Steph Callen and I’m the Communications Manager at Redwings. We had a very tight window of opportunity to shoot the advert (by ‘tight’, we mean days!), so I gathered up myself, my two-year-old daughter and my parents for a day of filming at Redwings Caldecott.

Luckily, the sun shone brightly and we were able to enjoy a very special and exclusive walk around the centre on one of the days it is normally closed to the public. It was hard to describe it as work!

My daughter was in seventh-heaven, excitedly pointing at all the horses and giggling at the donkeys who, on cue, all poked their heads through their fence for plenty of fuss and scratches, including Adoption Star Esther. What pros!

Meanwhile, Shire cross Adoption Star Fox didn’t want to miss out on his five seconds of fame and strutted over to his fence for a cuddle. If you watch the advert, you’ll see him balancing his chin on top of my head as I give him lots of lovely chest scratches. He really is such a gentle giant!

The shoot concluded with some filming in Redwings Caldecott’s beautiful café, which included us all being served cake… which we devoured later!

Thank you to the team at Redwings Caldecott for helping us ensure the horses and donkeys were looking ship-shape for their television debut, and for opening the café when the centre was closed.

We’re so pleased to have created such a positive and warm advert, which so many of you have enjoyed. We hope it portrays the joy - for all the family - that comes from spending time with our rescued horses and donkeys, and by supporting them through our Adoption Scheme.

Further information about visiting our centres can be found here, or if you’d like to sponsor an Adoption Star for yourself or a loved one, you can do so here.

Thank you #RedwingsAngels