The creatives at WEEK, Gray’s ABC, NBC and CW affiliates in Peoria, Ill., like to stretch themselves a bit creatively, especially when it comes to weather promos. “Every year we try to find a way to outdo the year before,” says Tim Campbell, WEEK’s creative services manager.

This is the weather promo WEEK created last year.

So in February, Tom Pokarney,? a creative services producer, approached Campbell suggesting the spring weather promo be based on Alice in Wonderland .

You remember Alice in Wonderland, the 1865 English children’s novel by Lewis Carroll, a mathematics professor at Oxford University. Alice falls through a rabbit hole and stumbles into a fantasy world of humanlike creatures.

Campbell liked the idea but wasn’t sure how they could pull it off.

The goal of the spring weather promo was to illustrate the ups and downs of weather from day to day. Sometimes it’s sunny and warm, sometimes it’s cold and rainy, windy, stormy, and snowy, too. And if the promo could mention that the station has five meteorologists, that would be nice.

Thus, was born “Alice in Weatherland.”

I’ll let Campbell take it from here:

“Our first challenge was to find a location ? where we could make it look like spring when nothing was green or in bloom. We searched a few locations in town but determined we could make our backyard weather garden work.? We ordered some flowery decorations from Amazon ($20?) to bring our location to life. Next, we needed costumes for the weather team. We contacted our local theatre groups for rentals but they didn’t seem to have what we were looking for or were far too expensive. We ended up working with the Peoria Historical Society who has a collection of Victorian period reenactment clothing for their special events. The group even provided us with old English tea party service pieces too. Next was Alice. I reached out to a mother I knew whose children were active in theatre. She said her daughter would love to do it. Mom was even able to locate an Alice costume. Even with my early doubts, it all was coming together.

“It wasn’t until after the shoot that we came up with the obvious name for the spot ? Alice in Weatherland.

“I am very lucky to work with a creative and talented team. They are not afraid to pitch unique promo ideas. They want to challenge themselves. A big thank you to Tom Pokarney for coming up with the idea and his editing skills. This is a great station if you are on the marketing team. We get support from our GM Pete Russell to push the limit. We get support from the news and weather team. And what’s even better, our viewers seem to love when do these kinds of spots.”

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