Happy Eggs…The Breakdown

How Curious brought Happy Egg Co.’s latest campaign to life on a working chicken farm with real farmers, real hens and a production team ready for the unexpected.

How do you direct a chicken?

That was one of the questions Curious had to answer when Live & Breathe brought us on board as production company for Happy Egg Co.’s Happy Hens Lay Tasty Eggs campaign.

Our role covered the production from end to end. Casting and location through to crew, shoot and post-production, taking the campaign from an approved creative idea through to final TV and radio delivery.

Taking the campaign to the farm

In September 2023, Curious headed north to one of Noble Foods’ Happy Egg Co. farms just outside Nottingham.

Rather than recreating the environment in a studio, the campaign was built around the real thing: a working farm, real Happy Egg Co. farmers and, naturally, real chickens.

That authenticity was central to the production, but it also came with a few practical considerations. A live farm isn’t a conventional film set, and chickens aren’t exactly known for hitting their marks!

Working around the rhythms of the farm meant the production team had to stay flexible, adapting to the environment and the behaviour of our feathered cast as we captured the shots.

Real farmers. Real farm. Real hens.

Using the real Happy Egg Co. farmers brought another layer of authenticity to the campaign.

Rather than casting actors to play farmers, we were able to capture the people who actually work with the hens and understand the farm day to day. It helped the campaign feel grounded in the reality behind the Happy Egg Co. brand.

The shoot was led by photographer and DOP Dan Humphreys, capturing the farm, farmers and hens across two sunny September days.

The result was a series of warm, upbeat images and films that put the people and animals behind the brand at the centre of the campaign.

From the farm to the Curious studio

The production didn’t stop when we left Nottingham.

Back at Curious’s London studio, we continued the process through post-production, including the kitchen table scenes and final finishing.

In total, Curious produced four TV spots and four radio spots, taking the campaign across both visual and audio formats ahead of its February 2024 launch.

With production, studio and post-production handled by one team, we were able to manage the campaign from the initial signed-off creative through to final TV and radio delivery.

The Curious production approach

For us, the challenge wasn’t simply getting the shots. It was creating a production environment that could accommodate the realities of a working farm while still delivering a polished, broadcast-ready campaign.

That meant planning carefully, working closely with the farmers, being ready to adapt on set and embracing a little unpredictability along the way.

Because sometimes the best production plan is the one that leaves room for a chicken to do exactly what it wants.

From creative to casting, location to shoot, and farm to final frame, we managed the production from start to finish.