Actor and former professional footballer Vinnie Jones stars as Santa's enforcer in “World of Tanks”' short film for its annual seasonal takeover, “Holiday Ops.”

While Jones and Santa seem to have a good relationship, including hanging out in a bubble bath together, Jones is lured to a new job by the promise of the company car: a tank. Jones takes Santa on a joy ride that includes reindeer skeet-shooting, helps him out on this year's naughty list, and then goes on his way.

Independent global creative agency Cubo joined forces with Amsterdam-based production company Halal to produce the spot for game publisher Wargaming. The piece was directed by Berlin-based Andzej Gavriss, a rising star from Latvia.

The film was conceived, written and approved – including multiple rounds of consumer testing – in a “creative sprint” that took just a week. The finished film targets current and potential “World of Tanks” players on PC, mobile and console.

Cubo Creative Director Henry Scott and copywriter and playwright Ryan Delehanty penned the script with input from the entire team, including the cast – who were also encouraged to improvise jokes and lines.

“It's always a privilege to work with gaming studios. For them, entertainment isn't a means to an end, it pays the bills. From the start, we didn't want to make your average festive campaign – we wanted to bring some big characters to the screen and give gamers something they hadn't seen before,” said Scott in a statement.

“This film breaks many of the conventions of global advertising. For the audience, this is absolutely rewarding viewing but for the team commissioning the work, it is incredibly risky,” said Pilar Rashad, strategy director at Cubo, also in a statement. “To come out after just one week with everybody aligned and confident about producing something totally different from the norm is remarkable. The beauty of our way of working is not that it takes away time – but that it gives us the focus to make a great idea great – without diluting it.”