Festive German advert featuring 12-year-old Newbury girl goes viral

  • Published
Sophie, left, in the Kaufland advertImage source, Kaufland
Image caption,

The advert for Kaufland is titled Der Zaun, which translates as The Fence

An advert for a German supermarket chain featuring a 12-year-old actor from Berkshire has gone viral.

It features Sophie from Newbury, who plays one of the key roles in the festive campaign about two neighbouring families - one poor, the other rich.

She said: "It's so crazy I was so shocked - it went from 100,000 views to over seven million views in two weeks."

The advert sees a fence put up to curb the friendship between the two young neighbours pulled down at Christmas.

Image source, Kaufland
Image caption,

Sophie becomes friends with the boy but her parents put up a fence between their house and his mobile home

Sophie said her character - also called Sophie - is from a rich family, "she moves in to this lovely big house and we find out that there's a poor mum and son and they live next door to us in a caravan".

She said: "Me and the boy have started to become friends - but the dad doesn't like it so he builds a fence - but we still find a way to play with each other through the fence.

"I wrap a gift to give to him but I get annoyed because I can't get the present through the fence so the dad takes down the fence and then we all eat together in between the fences."

Image source, Catriona Reeves
Image caption,

Sophie in Bulgaria during the filming for the advert

The advert was filmed in July in Bulgaria, and Sophie said: "It was weird I was like... how's it going to snow?

"For the falling snow they used special bubbles and bits of paper and potato for the snow on the ground."

Despite being a massive hit online, Sophie said she's not being stopped for selfies in her home town.

She said: "if I ever went to Germany I wonder if they would say 'weren't you in that advert'?

"This is the biggest thing I've ever done - it was such an amazing experience."

The advert, titled Der Zaun - which translates as "The Fence", for Kaufland has to date reached 7.1m views on YouTube.