Car Planet | Space Farer

The world of car supermarkets is a competitive one. To stand out, the marketing for this sector has gone a little… wild, let’s say. Irreverent celebrity endorsements, fantastical narratives and lo-fi viral clips are the order of the day. When we were approached by Car Planet to create more of the same, we knew this was going to be fun…

The Brief

At the end of the day, the average car supermarket customer is looking for the right car at the right price. Where they buy it from, and the finer nuances between brands, often isn’t front of mind. In a market like that, visibility is everything. Exposure drives traffic, and traffic drives sales.

That’s why marketing in this space has evolved into something far more playful and entertaining. The goal isn’t just to sell cars; it’s to capture attention, create familiarity, and push viewers towards the website or app. Somewhere along the way, this sector became a genuine creative playground for marketers looking to make their brand feel human and memorable.

With one eye firmly on the competitive landscape, Car Planet approached us to create two TV commercials in that same spirit, one for Car Planet itself, and another for its sister company, Cardaddys.

The Creative Approach

With the objective of standing out in an already crowded marketplace, the concept and visual style became central to the creative approach.

For Car Planet, we wanted to lean into the sci-fi undertones of the brand name, something we knew would feel genuinely distinctive within the sector. That gave us licence to create something heavily stylised and cinematic, drawing inspiration from classic science fiction. From that, the idea of the “Space Farer” was born: a playful comparison between the sleek interior of a modern car and the cockpit of a spaceship.

For Cardaddys, the starting point was different. The business already had a genuine USP; they collect the car directly from the seller. We wanted to dramatise that convenience through a perfectly timed comedic interruption. The creative evolved through several iterations before landing on a darker fairytale aesthetic, centred around the all-knowing magic mirror.

As a full-service video production company, we were able to develop both concepts from the ground up and bring these imaginative worlds to life. That meant investing in a high-quality spacesuit for Space Farer, alongside extensive art direction for Magic Mirror, complete with a wonderfully gothic collection of props, set dressing, and visual detail.

Production

Two commercials. One day.

Time pressures dictated that the shoot was scheduled to be completed in a single day at Creative Klousions Studios. The studio environment allowed us to build a complete living room for Magic Mirror that could then be swapped out later in the day for the much tighter confines of our Mercedes interior setup. A rigorous pre-light day gave the team to build and assess the lighting set-ups to allow for quicker turnarounds during the shoot.

From the outset, creating the distinct look and feel of the two worlds was all about control – of light, space, atmosphere, and detail. For Magic Mirror, gothic trinkets and unusual wall art helped establish the fairytale setting, supported by dramatic lighting flashes and elongated window shadows inspired by German Expressionist cinema. RGB lighting introduced the fantastical colour palette and tied visually into the eventual mirror entity itself. Finally, we filled the space with haze to give shape to the lighting and create that soft, cinematic texture.

For Space Farer, the approach was cleaner and more minimal, but no less deliberate.

We shot across both an ARRI Amira and a RED Komodo, paired with Blazar Remus 1.5x Anamorphic Lenses. Together, the setup produced a wide 2.67:1 aspect ratio that felt cinematic and expansive. The lenses brought subtle imperfections and organic texture to the image, helping add character and depth to an otherwise clean aesthetic, giving the final visuals a more tactile, lived-in quality.

The result was a carefully controlled visual world that balanced precision with personality.

Shooting two commercials in a single day was always going to be ambitious. But the flexibility of the studio space, combined with detailed pre-production, meant the schedule stayed firmly on track and the production itself remained surprisingly stress-free. There were even reports of people enjoying themselves.

Ultimately, projects like these are exactly what Lambda Films thrives on: ambitious creative, stylised worlds, visual storytelling, and the chance to bring bold ideas to life.