STIR Post Butters Up A Lass With Sound Design And Audio Mix For Irish Brand Kerrygold And EnergyBBDO

STIR Post Audio’s Sr. Sound Designer/Mixer, Nick Bozzone helps a love struck school kid make moves as smooth as butter on the new Irish girl who shows up in class in a new 60-second spot for Kerrygold, the Irish dairy group. Created by Energy BBDO and described by AdAge as the brand’s largest ad campaign in the United States to date, "Made for this Moment" follows the boy’s instant attraction to the lass, who shares the same hair and eye color as him, and his quest to make their heritage win her heart. To make her feel at home in the United States, the spot follows him foraging for Irish wildflowers, tracking down an Irish tin whistle and book of poems, culminating in him surprising her with a friendship offering of those things and platter of snacks featuring Kerrygold butter and assorted cheeses.

Scene by scene Bozzone deftly provides sound design that heightens shifts in locale and mood as the boy, driven by first love, researches flora in a field (bees and tree rustling provided by Bozzone), hunts for a tin whistle in a music store with muted rock music, and classroom sounds of kids shifting in their seats while an acoustic music track by Nate Richert takes center stage.

“The main goal of this campaign was to let the music and great lyrics have center stage, let them breathe and let them be their own character in the story. Even though each scene had to be filled out with sound design elements, the idea was to have these sounds be almost felt and not heard… nothing poking through further than anything else, and nothing reaching the music.”

The campaign, directed by Aaron Ruell of Biscuit Filmworks (NY/UK), edited by Angelo Valencia of Beast, and color correction by Company 3, includes 30-second and 15-second versions for broadcast and 60-second spot for the web. 

“This was a special project for us,” says David Kaplan, Executive Producer/Partner at Stir Post. “The film is gorgeous and the on-camera actors are terrific. The client wanted the VO to sound as authentic as possible, so went right to the source casting a native Irish voice actor from Belfast. Nick did an amazing job balancing the sound design relative to the music allowing the emotion of the spots to shine through. By doing separate mixes for the web and broadcast spots he maximized the impact for each medium.”