Arna makes a 3D cow dance in new advert

A lactose-free milk brand has used a three-dimensional animated cow in a television advert after deciding that filming a real cow would take too long, mbl.is reports.

The dancing cow appears in an advert for Arna, a milk company in Bolungarvík, performing to the song Láttu þér líða vel by the band Stjórnin. The advert was filmed at the Borg community centre in Grímsnes.

Hrafn Gunnarsson, creative director and co-owner of the advertising agency Brandenburg, said the team early in the design process began asking why the Icelandic cow had not featured more often in dairy advertising.

Arna produces lactose-free dairy products that are easier on the stomach. The campaign’s key message is that consumers should feel better when they use the products, which led the team to choose the song and have the cow dance to it.

Cows can be lively when they are released from their barns in spring, Hrafn said, but getting a real cow to perform predetermined dance steps would have been much more difficult.

“We quickly realised that we could not use a real cow. It would have taken the whole year,” he said.

The team contacted UNDIR about creating a three-dimensional version of the animal. Choreographer Elma Rún Kristinsdóttir designed the dance, while the production company Skot handled the filming.

The team filmed twice at Borg. Elma Rún first performed the dance for the cow, and then they filmed without her. The footage was combined during post-production.

Hrafn said the aim was to attract attention with something different from previous dairy advertising. The advert was first released during the first week of June and was still being shown when the article was published. He said it had received an exceptionally positive response.

The comments came after a new advert for MS’s Gotta cheese attracted strong reactions on social media, where people suspected that artificial intelligence had been used to make it. That advert was subsequently withdrawn.

Hrafn said Brandenburg uses artificial intelligence at various stages of the creative process, along with other new technology. But he said it did not replace taste, experience or careful work.

“The cow is a good example of this,” he said. “We are fortunate to have excellent three-dimensional designers and filmmakers who can conjure up the most extraordinary things. For those of us who work on ideas, it opens all kinds of doors, such as having a dancing animal as the lead actor.”

Einar Rögnvaldsson, a motion designer and co-owner of UNDIR, handled most of the manual work, post-production and technical elements of the Arna advert.

He said three-dimensional production involved many tasks and required attention to numerous details, including making the cow move naturally and giving it the right texture and sufficient hair.