Tuesday, November 30, 2021

Here they are!

 One thing the UK does better than the US, in my opinion, are the "heartwarming commercials at Christmas." Usually, it seems, they are much less explicit about what product they're selling; it seems more a "brand recognition" thing.

Like, this one, from 2017


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And also, there's the Wes Anderson H and M commercial, which I am still fond of:




With a few exceptions (the famous Folgers ad of many years ago), US Christmas ads seem more aimed to "here is our product! look, this is our product! why not buy our product now, for Christmas!" The ones I particularly dislike are the car-for-Christmas ads because....how many people actually DO that? I mean, I could see "okay we need a new car, we're budgeting for one, why not get one around Christmas because we're buying one anyway" but if I had been told as a kid "We're getting a marginally fancier car than we might but it's taking the place of other Christmas gifts this year" I'd have been disappointed. 

I mean, are they supposed to be aspirational? I literally have never known a single fellow American who was wealthy enough to give a car as a Christmas present. 

But anyway. I was wondering "so are they doing the heartwarming Christmas ads this year, or is everyone too burnt out following fundamentally two years of pandemic" but then today Roger had (in his monthly links post) a link to this masterpost of Christmas advertisements.

I wasn't prepared to be as moved by the John Lewis one as I was, but...well, I guess if you're going to promote messages of love and peace, this is the time? I also liked the McDonald's one, though I wish it WERE as simple as opening a closet back up and finding a chunk of my childhood waiting for me.

I will admit that given the threat of Omicron, the Tesco one feels a little....premature? (I guess the lesson from this pandemic is, never, ever spike the football, assuming it's done. Sigh.) Same with the Sainsbury one, and I'm not sure I like the use of a very ROMANTIC ballad (Etta James' "At Last") in an advertisement about family. Also the weird slow-motion/freeze-frame thing is slightly offputting to me.

There's another Paddington one, too, but it's not as good, I think, as the older one. But I guess they can't all land well.


 

 


1 comment:

Roger Owen Green said...

The commercials seem to have started earlier in the US, which didn't bother me as much as I assumed it would. But I actively HATE the Peloton commercial of Scrooge becoming fit, full of Clement Moore-like rhyme.

I do like some ads - the M&Ms and Santa fainting after discovering the other is real, the Norelco commercial (Noelco), and even the Hershey's kisses as bells. But The Folgers series was the best and I swear at least one of them ran for a couple of decades.