The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2022
Back Market's puppet film 'The Monster' turns our hunger for new tech into a fable
Back Market makes conscious consumption a puppet fable — a girl and a monster brought to life with 20-plus handcrafted puppets and hand-built sets.
Back Market
What it had to solve
Back Market, the marketplace for refurbished electronics, wanted to inspire conscious consumption: the desire for new devices drives waste, but telling people to buy less feels like a lecture. The message needed a story that made the alternative feel desirable rather than dutiful.
How it works
Back Market sells refurbished electronics, and its film starts from a hard message: the insatiable desire for new things has an impact, and the way out is to do more with what already exists. Told as a lecture, that thought would repel the very people it targets.
The answer was an endearing puppet relationship. In the film, a young girl and a monster come together in a story that highlights the impact of always wanting new and offers an alternative path. A group of artists handcrafted multiple sets and more than 20 puppets — three different versions of the Monster himself, along with the girl, four city slickers, four miners, four zoned-out tech fans and the crying clouds.
A sprinkle of stop-motion, 2D animation and clever 3D techniques enhanced the story, and the handmade craft became part of the argument: a film built with care asks its audience to value what already exists. D&AD keeps the work in its awards archive, which records the idea rather than reach figures.
Why it lands
- An endearing puppet relationship gets the environmental message in before the viewer can resist being preached at.
- The monster makes the appetite for new things visible and separate from the audience, so the film blames the habit, not the buyer.
- Hand-built craft mirrors the message: a film made with care argues that we should value what already exists.
- The physical production — 20-plus puppets, three monsters, hand-built sets — gave the single idea a warmth no stock animation could carry.
What it did
The film gave an uncomfortable message an emotional body: the hunger for new things became a monster you could watch, and the alternative path was shown through the girl's choice rather than asserted. D&AD keeps the work in its awards archive; the page records no view figures.
What you can take
To sell a behaviour change that feels like sacrifice, give the bad habit a character the audience can pity and the good choice a story — the correction becomes something to love, not endure.
Since then
D&AD keeps The Monster in its awards archive; the page records no response figures, so the case stands on the mechanism: the film converts 'consume less' from a sacrifice into a story about an unlikely pair finding a better path, told with handmade craft. The transferable idea is to personify the habit you want people to break, and to make the alternative the emotional centre rather than the warning.
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