Manchester’s Doodledo: Bee-hind the scenes on how our Advent animation was made

Hive you heard…? 

This year our Caritas bees are buzzing with excitement to have their moment in the spotlight on a very special new TV show.

Here, the bee-rilliant team from Doodledo who created the animation for the campaign tell us more about how it was made…

The theme for Caritas’ 2025 advent campaign is shining a spotlight on homelessness, poverty and disadvantage across Greater Manchester and Lancashire.

Inspired by talent shows and the plethora of creativity across social media channels, the 2025 campaign sets out to inspire people to use their talents for good, helping drive donations for Caritas Salford and support the amazing work they’re doing with communities in our area.

As our head of video at Doodledo, Duncan Howsley, said: “Projects like this bring the whole team together – not just creatively, but through a shared purpose to create work that makes a difference in the world.

“The work Caritas do in the community here is nothing short of incredible, so having the opportunity to use our ideas and energy to help raise much needed funds for such a brilliant cause is really amazing”.

The animation this year required more involvement from the wider team than in previous years as it required a combination of music, singing and dancing from our animated bees.

To enable the creation of bespoke tracks we saw the formation of a Doodledo band with James, Duncan, Mark and Joe all contributing musically (and vocally) for this year’s campaign.

The band wrote and produced Caritas-themed covers of famous tracks in styles sympathetic to the originals, by acts like Abba, Lewis Capaldi, Benson Boone and Manchester’s very own Bee Gees.

The animation was staged around a talent show stage reminiscent of Stars in their Eyes (remember that?) and the X-Factor – we called it ‘Stars in their Hives’ – the first of many bee puns injected into the campaign.

As with previous years – getting the messaging right was key to success so the team worked hard to make the lyrics land in a fun but poignant way with lines like:

“Help you with your earnings, or English that you’re learning, You’re staying alive, staying alive” and “Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie a plan for my bills right, won’t somebody help chase these worries away?”

Doodledo’s production manager, Nicola Davies, said: “Creating the bespoke tracks that nodded back to the original hits and lyrics was a joy to be a part of.

“We had a lot of fun in the studio coming up with lyrical word play and puns that worked within the parameters of the song, as well as the context we’re promoting with the cause.

“What the team ended up creating far exceeded our expectations and has really done the concept justice.”

Meet the Bees

The bees this year took to the stage and dressed as their favourite artists, and why not – it isn’t every day that you get to stand under the spotlight.

From the Bee Gees (that name didn’t take lots of work) to Lewis Capal-Bee and Benson Bee to Abbbba – but with 4 bees!

Our characters were lots of fun to design and animate and the addition of eyebrows and instruments this year gave more opportunity for an emotive performance.

The team enjoyed designing various combinations of hair, beards and costumes.

From the glittery jumpsuit that Benson wore to the 70s inspired black and white ensemble that made Abbbba feel coherent as a group, every detail was carefully considered – even the cheeky Caritas sticker on Lewis’ guitar.

The bees were lovingly animated by Kris, Jack and Joe this year who may or may not have been performing the routines themselves to get all the timings right.

Joe Spademan, our head of animation, enjoyed working on this year’s campaign: “The advent campaign for Caritas has become a bit of a tradition for the animation team at Doodledo and each year we find a way to push ourselves harder to create something really special.

“It’s been a lot of fun for us once again and we’re incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved – hopefully it’ll drive donations up and support what this incredible charity is doing!”

You can make a donation to the appeal now by clicking here.

We hope you like this campaign as much as we enjoyed making it, and if you did – why not make a donation to Caritas Salford?

To make a donation to Bee There this Christmas, click here now.

Thank you.