Last October a location scout called me up, out of the blue, and asked if we'd consider allowing Huggies to shoot a diaper commercial at The Yoga Room. My immediate response was Yes! After a few on-site visits and lots of discussion between the director, the producer, the art director, the location scout, the property manager, the landlord, and me, everyone finally agreed to do it. One early morning in late October I showed up at the studio at 7:00 a.m. to find the entire property buzzing with about 60-70 crew members. I was cast as the yoga teacher for the commercial. It was an exciting day. You can read all about the day of filming here.
At the end of the day of shooting, I happened to be standing next to a Huggies Marketing Exec, and I asked her when the commercial would air. She said they would screen test it and IF the target audience liked the commercial, it would air sometime in April. I remember thinking, That's a lot of effort and expense for something that might not even air!
Months passed and I didn't hear anything about the commercial, until one day at the end of March I suddenly got an email from "@huggies." I opened the email with excitement - it was an invitation to the Huggies Premiere! At Flix Brewhouse! And Giuliana Rancic was hosting! What a big deal! In Round Rock!
A few days later, my friend, the Special Events Coordinator for the City, Kristin Brown, forwarded me an email with the Huggies commercial trailer attached. It was a teaser that included bits of all 5 of the commercials the crew filmed in Round Rock back in October. It was so cool to see images of The Yoga Room mixed in with the other Huggies commercials.
http://youtu.be/QQOvoLf5Ucc
Finally, the day of the Premiere arrived. It was an exciting event. All the families who had participated in the commercial were invited. Mayor Alan McGraw was there. The media was there. Giuliana Rancic stood on the red carpet and graciously chatted and took photos with everyone.
Then it was time to go into one of the theaters in Flix to see the the Huggies commercials on the big screen. The proud family sitting to my left brought their baby who starred in the first commercial. Everyone clapped when it was done, then the second, third, and finally our commercial came up on the big screen. It was beautiful, and just as I remembered it from that day back in October. How fun to see the studio on a giant movie screen! I tried to take some still photos, but they didn't come out very good since we were in a dark theater :)
I spoke with one of the moms who appeared in the yoga commercial with her baby, and she's been in contact with the advertising agency. She told me that she learned that the "Huggies Test Town" campaign is a very big one for Huggies, and they plan to stagger the releases of each of the commercials. The first two are airing nationally already, and from what this mom understood, the yoga commercial will not air until sometime next year. That's a little bit of a bummer - I wish we could all see it on TV right now - but it will come soon enough!
In the meantime, here's a list of links related to the Huggies yoga commercial:
Playground Playdate Commercial Round Rock Leader article Austin American Statesman Article Unofficial video from the Premiere
XO, Zelinda
P.S. Please let me know when you see our commercial appear on TV so I can be sure to record it! And please let me know if you have any questions or curiosities about the commercial. I'd be happy to talk to you about it!