**Disclaimer: It should be obvious, but these are all commercials that we DID NOT produce.
With our disclaimer out of the way, we thought it’d be fun to breakdown a few holiday commercials and spots that have stood out to us leading up to Christmas. Personally, I love the holiday season and really enjoy new commercials that air during this time of the year. The holidays are a great time for your brand to share emotional or even personal stories through advertising. Each of these commercials evoke emotion, are relatable, and have a little bit of holiday spirit in them.
Three of these four commercials have run as national ads on TV, but this first one we discovered through a LinkedIn post. Wegmans is a grocery store chain located in New York. This spot features a young boy working on clearing a driveway from leaves and snow, grabbing the mail, putting up Christmas lights, etc. He is doing this while the other kids are out and about playing. As the spot goes on, you assume he is just doing his regular everyday chores in which he seems to be enjoying. But by the end, you’ll see he was being a good neighbor!
I enjoy the quick shots and natural sound coupled with a nice emotional soundtrack. The production quality was great, but the storytelling was better. Yes, it was a little cheesy, but cheesy holiday commercials are oftentimes inspiring.
I’ve seen this commercial quite a few times from the mega store of Walmart. And in all honesty, I have really liked the direction Walmart has gone with their style of commercials over the last 3-4 years. Their commercials are typically upbeat and relatable. And this holiday spot is no different.
This commercial epitomizes relatability. So many of us can relate to trying to get that perfect family portrait, especially during the holidays. I love the energy of this spot and really get that feeling of holiday family chaos.
This Etsy spot has been shown so many times on Hallmark channel. Upon looking it up, I realized Etsy has a whole campaign about giving more than a gift. Their campaign is about the meaning behind customized gifts and the emotional pull is strong in each spot. This particular version showcases an elderly lady being helped by a young man who happens to be a store associate. You get to see them interact over a period of time and develop a friendship. At the end of the commercial, the elderly lady gives the young man a gift which is revealed to be gloves with his initials on them. Talk about heartwarming.
Here is another great spot that uses emotion to drive home the holiday spirit. I love the feel you get when watching this commercial. The spot does a great job telling a full story in a short amount of time.
We actually couldn’t find the :30 commercial version of this online, but did find the full short film. More and more brands are creating entertaining branded content to help sell their products and services. Apple has been doing this longer than most brands and with their recent iterations of the iPhone they have been doing full national ads completely filmed on the phones themselves. This spot is their latest “Shot on iPhone” commercial and I think it did a great job being real while also showcasing the possibilities of the camera on this phone. It’s sort of like a modern Frosty the Snowman reference.
I actually really enjoy the imperfections of this video. For example, at the :34 mark of the video you can actually see the iPhone autofocus not working very great. But I believe they left that shot in here to give it a “real” iPhone movie feel. The acting in this spot was also great! And of course the music throughout the spot is what really makes it a great “family vacation” type holiday spot with a nice sense of comedy towards the end.
You might be wondering why we, a video marketing company, would breakdown holiday spots NOT filmed by ourselves. The main reason is that we truly love what we do. We love telling stories that evoke emotion in audience and motivate them to act. That is what good marketing is all about. And because we love what we do, we also like to share the videos and commercials that inspire us with our own audience in hopes they will inspire them as well.
We hope you are enjoying the holiday season and are looking forward to the new year!
We’re always open to chat about anything marketing, video production, or digital strategy! We’d love to talk!
