British Gas sponsors Creature Comforts

British Gas is to sponsor Creature Comforts, the animation series made famous through advertising, in its first terrestrial television series sponsorship deal.

The deal covers all nine episodes of the Sunday afternoon show’s second series, including its first Christmas special. The first series, which features animal characters using the unscripted voices of the public, attracted average audiences of 8 million viewers

Unilever Bestfoods’ PG Tips sponsored the first series of the show, made by Wallace & Gromit creator Nick Park. The executions were judged to be the third-most popular TV ads in a recent Channel 4 programme, and were based on Park’s 1990 Oscar-winning animated short film of the same name.

The new sponsorship is expected to lead to further confusion in the public’s mind about the iconic Heat Electric ads from the early-1990s, which are often mistakenly attributed to British Gas, rather than the Electricity Board. Even Park refers to the campaign as the “British Gas” ads.

The deal was brokered by British Gas’s media agency Carat, while sponsorship credits have been produced by Clemmow Hornby Inge, which handles the &£26m ad account. The series will start on October 30 on ITV1.