How Christmas Ads Dine at our Table

Welcome to the enchanted world of Christmas advertising, where there are kings, princesses, and reinvented ads. 

What do we want for Christmas?
We want to cry with seasonal advertising.

And has it always been this way?
Well, more or less.

Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, or the time when Santa Claus comes to our house, down the chimney, to leave gifts. And can we talk about Christmas without Coca-Cola ads? Impossible.

Coca-Cola Commercial, 1931

The story goes that the recipe for the mythical drink was created in 1892 after the dry law in the United States, when the first version of the drink was used as a syrup against digestion problems. Since the 1920s, Coca-Cola has been trying to integrate the figure of Santa Claus in its posters. After a few attempts with little success, in 1931 Haddon Sundblom created what is still today the Coca-Cola Santa Claus image, inspired by Clement Clark Moore’s 1822 short story.

Legend has it that it was Coke (or Sundblom) who put the red on Santa Claus. Well, we like legends. But it is true that Coca-Cola has tried hard all these years to have a friendly and nice Santa Claus, who makes you want to invite him to have dinner with you. So it was Coca-Cola that made Santa Claus a friend, to children and adults alike.

But, how does this image make us cry at Christmas? By bringing it to life, thanks to television. In 1995, Santa Claus came to town in a convoy of trucks, spreading light and adrenaline!

We get how important the perfect illustration of a mythical being is in the world of Christmas ads. But we want more. We want to see Santa Claus in action. Can you do it, Coca-Cola?

Source: Youtube Coca-Cola

In 2022, the Coca-Cola Christmas ad kept the trucks impeccably lit, accented the father in Santa Claus.

Let’s take a break and wipe away the tears.

We already have booze. Now we lack chocolate.

Source: Youtube Ferrero Rocher Portugal

We can buy Ferrero Rocher all year round, but it has a special flavor in December. We know the ad is a hit because we know the lines:

Source: Youtube Worten Portugal

Is it a Christmas ad? No. But it is the brand’s choice to invest in advertising at this time of year. And the food distribution business goes along with the decision: there are pyramids of Ferrero Rocher bonbons at the supermarket entrance, at the checkouts, next to the codfish. And this Christmas, at Worten too:

Source: Youtube Worten Portugal

You can’t mess with a winning recipe – was the conclusion reached by Worten’s marketing and communication department this year. Ambrosio becomes Armando and the nice Santa Claus becomes…

Plagiarism? No. The voice of the Worten brand is humorous and reinvented these ads with who has been the face of Worten all year long: Ricardo Araújo Pereira. There is a continuity in the brand’s communication. It happened to be Christmas and they didn’t change their speech.

In Portugal, we manage to have even more biting voices.

But back to chocolate, iconic phrases, and sweet-toothed grandparents:

Source: Youtube Helderhugo

The Christmas commercial for Imperial’s milk chocolates was on the air for 18 years, since 1980. Impossible not to mark generations. Nowadays, Imperial does not invest in television ads, but rather in social media. We can call it a one-hit wonder.

The Magic of Television at Christmas
Television was not created with the purpose of hypnotizing anyone (although, many theories of subliminal messages seem credible). The goal has always been unity: the family gathers in front of the television to watch the Eurovision Song Contest or the World Cup Final, thus uniting families all over the world.

Television is movement and colors.

Television shows the movement of the golden dress and hat in the noble Ferrero Rocher ad, matching the wrapping of the chocolate – transformed this year into Red-Worten.

It is through television that we follow the path of the illuminated Coca-Cola trucks.

Source: Youtube Noah Johnson

And the music?

Movement, color, music, and nervousness about performing in public. From 1989, we get this little video of Hershey’s Kisses: chocolates in kisses.

But in Portugal, in Portuguese, who brought the best Christmas music?

It was Pingo Doce.

Released on Christmas 2021, the music stayed in our ears all year long. Quim Albergaria (Paus, Bateu Matou, The Vicious Five) and Manuel Palha (Capitão Fausto) know that rhymes work on television. The song tells the story of a traditional Portuguese family that sits at the table, with the help of Pingo Doce. A success by the fusion of the traditional world with the pop world. And so, the song “Christmas Brings Out the Best in Us” is the most sung Christmas song in Portugal, surpassing “All I Want For Christmas is You” by Mariah Carey – so the legend goes.

Source: Youtube Pingo Doce

You’d think that Pingo Doce (always talking about brands here, not companies, because that’s what the consumer sees) would repeat the song for Christmas 2022. Well, they didn’t. They took a chance and:

Created by the same marketing agency – BBDO Portugal – and using the same voice – Carolina Milhanas – “Christmas sits at the table” has the same ingredients as the counterpart campaign of the previous year, adding the flavor of savings. Could Pingo Doce have taken the same music from 2021 and changed only the video? Power, it could, but it wasn’t the same.

Both campaigns use warm colors and elements: the fireplace’s yell bread from the wood oven. Both bring the family together at a bountiful table.

Pingo Doce does not create a Christmas jingle. It makes music, a story, and a hit. Ow and the brown

We have enough examples to reach the first conclusion:

Christmas ads are a lesson in Storytelling

Source: Youtube Gato Preto

This lesson can be carried over to social networks, with such movement, color and music. Recently, Madalena Abecasis, Portuguese digital influencer – who plays the madam of the 1.22 Ferrero Rocher version for Worten – was the main star of an advertisement for the Gato Preto store on Instagram:

What did Aunt Magdalena bring us? Fun, comical, fun. And the fusion between a success on social networks and a renowned decoration store in Portugal. Writing and doing humor is complicated. Criticism soon appeared: the ad doesn’t have a plot.

But should it have?

It should. If not, it’s like trying to eat an orange without peeling it.

The recipe is theoretically simple: introduction, development, conclusion.

And to follow this order, there are several storytelling strategies.

The best known has a woman’s name: AIDA. Let’s see the meaning of each letter of this acronym:

A: ATTENTION – getting the reader/consumer’s attention

I: INTEREST – new and interesting information that attracts the reader/consumer

D: DESIRE – benefits of your product/idea/service

A: ACTION – asks for an action, a response. In digital marketing, this is where we insert the call to action (CTA).

If the AIDA recipe does not fully meet the needs of your storyline, your narrative, if it does not fit your chosen tone of voice, I leave you with more options here:

PAS

P: Problem

A: Action

S: Solution

BAB

B: BEFORE

A: AFTER

B: BRIDGE (bridge)

ACCA

A: Awareness

C: Comprehension

C: Conviction

A: Action

Whichever scheme you choose, what do they have in common?

They end with the request to act, the CTA. They end with an explicit request, even if disguised, for the reader/consumer to do something. And that something, usually, is to buy.

So what are the attributes of a good story for an unforgettable Christmas ad?

The idea must grab the consumer’s attention;
Next, the idea must unite all the brand’s values;
In addition, the idea must communicate the brand’s value proposition, showing the consumer its benefits;
And lastly, the idea must be memorable, creating emotional bonds between the brand and the consumer.
With every Christmas ad there are criticisms coming in like little lights on a pinecone melting in 1999. Likes and criticisms aside, brands have a golden opportunity here to show their voice and tone.

Voice and tone are different concepts. The voice of the brand is always the same, but the tone changes depending on the situation. And at Christmas, it is (almost) always melancholic, even in brands whose voice is more serious:

Source: Bons Tutoriais

Source: Youtube Yell

In 2022, we have all the information just a click away. Not so in 1992. Who still has a list of the Yellow Pages at home?

What if we told – or rewrote – a real story in a Christmas ad? In 2014, Sainsbury’s, a famous supermarket in the UK did so. 1914 tells the story of World War I fighters laying down their arms for a soccer match:

Source: Youtube Sainsbury’s

Christmas ads in Portugal – the causes and the tears

The competition in Portugal is all about telecom companies. Not only in the services they sell, but in their Christmas ads.

Source: Youtube NOS Portugal

This year, NOS went ahead with a campaign entitled The Carousel (signed by O Escritório):

The campaign aims to end loneliness, in an ad that lightly touches on the topic of depression. Why has it worked so well?

The Music. The arrangement of Don’t You (Forget About Me) by Simple Minds is brilliantly delicate.
It doesn’t get into gender or age stereotypes. The main character, the one who is lonely, is a man, still young, after a breakup.
It associates with a cause. NOS has associated itself with SOS Voz Amiga, the oldest telephone helpline in the country, a service that provides emotional support to those in need. How does this help from NOS translate into? By increasing the mobile data, minutes of calls and SMS of its customers.
NOS thus manages to overcome, and rightly so, the much criticized 2021 Christmas advertisement, where the main character was a very dissatisfied girl:

Source: Youtube NOS Portugal

The Impossible Friend has an introduction, development, and conclusion. It presents a problem and its solution – a good example of the PAS scheme. So why was it so criticized? There is no emotion. And the little girl’s wish only realized through virtual reality, ignoring all attempts at surprise by her parents.

Emotion. Something so well accomplished in 2020 by NOS, the year of the pandemic, with The Separation:

Source: Youtube NOS Portugal

Is there a recipe for creating emotion?

No.

There are writing practices that can be practiced.

Competition in 2021 was fierce. It was the year that Vodafone publicly associated itself with the Commission for Citizenship and Gender Equality – CIG – in the fight against domestic violence.

Begin again tells a story of domestic violence, a chronic problem in Portugal. Vodafone didn’t try to be original: it was real. It created emotion and a feeling of identification. Vodafone, in partnership with CIG, offered the communications services to the shelters for victims of domestic violence, all over the country.

Source: Vodafone Portugal

At the beginning of this video, we don’t understand what is happening, nor the gravity of the situation. This crescendo of suspense is not unique to books of the fantastic. And this script proves it.

And this has been Vodafone’s great trick: to create suspense by telling the story very slowly. It had already done this in 2020, with Canto de Natal:

Source: Vodafone Portugal

More than an ad

Christmas campaigns are more than a brand’s attempt to sell something. They are stories in short films.

Christmas ads show the brands’ causes, their social responsibility, their values. It shows their value proposition.

Every December 22, there is a Spaniard awarded a prize by El Gordo, Spain’s Christmas lottery. In 2016, El Gordo’s campaign tells the story of a grandmother who, seeing an old ad on television, becomes convinced that she has won the lottery. The ad captures our attention for 5 minutes, as the joy is contagious.

Source: Youtube MarketingDirecto

And if there was a prize for best Christmas 2022 ad…

There is a line that separates Vodafone from NOS. That line fades at Christmas. Why is that? Because Christmas is family, love, fraternization, friendship. And when we have common bonds, or customers, what matters is the cause.

In 2022, Vodafone gave us a gift:

Source: Youtube Vodafone Portugal

The First Step is associated with the youthful image that Vodafone has always maintained throughout its life, with music that does not take attention away from the images and a story, told very calmly, of a young boy saved by a phone call.

According to the World Health Organization, one in seven young people and adolescents worldwide suffer from a mental health problem. Vodafone asks you to share your story with #ShareWhatYou’reFeeling

Share: Christmas dinner, gifts, a good wine and your favorite commercial, as if it were a mini Home Alone.