Z: Welcome everybody to the Christmas edition of Straight Shot.

 

J: Ho. Ho. Ho, everyone.

 

Z: Jennifer, how is your Christmas going?

 

J: So far, so good. The children are still alive. I still have at least 35 cents in the bank. So far, so good, but it’s not Christmas yet.

 

Z: Are the children frustrating?

 

J: No, they’re a joy. They are a Christmas blessing.

 

Z: What we’re going to do today is we’re taking a little break in the Harley Davidson series in order to talk about something that very timely which is Christmas advertising. There are several things in an advertiser’s year. Christmas season is one of those things. There are several seasons that are very common in advertising including back to school season. Christmas is the biggest one, starting with Black Friday where we go from the day before Thanksgiving to the Christmas season. This is the number one season for retailers. Because of that, it’s also a big season for advertising. The other thing that is used a lot is football particularly centered around the Super Bowl.

 

J:  -which is coming to Atlanta in February.

 

Z: We will be doing a Super Bowl edition as well where we’ll talk about the different ads that are going to run on the Super Bowl.

 

J: Why watch the sport when you could just watch the ads?

 

Z: In our industry, that’s what we do. Everybody leaves to go to the bathroom once the commercials come on. We actually sit down when the commercials come on and leave when they’re doing touchdowns.

 

J: Games back on. I’ll go refill the dip.

 

Z: Go sports. What we’re going to talk about today is some of the ads that we’ve seen for this Christmas season. We may visit a few favorites and discuss what we think about them as well as critique them. We’ll do the same thing when we get to the Super Bowl ads. We also do a tweet-along when the Super Bowl rolls around. If you want to go to the Reformation Facebook page, it’s facebook.com/reformationproductions. On Super Bowl night, we will tweet along our thoughts as we’re going. We will speak about it mostly on the podcast after the Super Bowl. That is not until February of next year. Let’s go ahead and get started talking about the Christmas ads. Jennifer, do you have any favorites that you’ve seen so far?

 

J: Yeah, I have a few. One sticks out in particular. I think that there are certain companies that almost hit it out of the park every year. Hallmark lives and breathes for the season. Hallmark usually has great ads. One of the interesting things we could touch on this podcast is the fact that Hallmark does entire movies on the Hallmark channel that are basically movie advertising for greeting cards. They have five actors that keep acting in all the different movies with all the same plot line just in different cities. There have been a few stand-out ads and commercials that have happened this season that I like. One of the ones that stood out really was the best thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Has anyone ever heard of this little Christmas movie called Home Alone? The very first Macaulay Culkin Home Alone was so great. It was filmed in my hometown. We always watch Home Alone every year because it just keeps getting better. I found an ad for Google and it is a reinvention of the Home Alone movie with a grown-up Macaulay Culkin.

 

Z: Let’s take a minute and we’ll watch it and then talk about it.

 

6:41: Google’s Macaulay Culkin Ad Explained

 

J: I can guarantee with 100 percent certainty that if my kids had been left home alone, they would have not gotten up, taken a shower, dressed themselves, decorated a Christmas tree, and made themselves dinner, let alone operation Kevin. I want to put it out there that Home Alone is a farce.

 

Z: One of my favorite things about this ad is something that we do a lot in this industry because it does well. It uses celebrity endorsement, but he is doing a nod to the character he played when he was a child. The part that’s really cool is they go through and they mimic classic scenes only now he’s an adult. That’s where the Google ad comes in with their product because they’re advertising Google’s version of Echo or Alexa. It’s just really well done as far as showcasing the classic Home Alone clips. I noticed that they didn’t have the budget for Joe Pesci in this one. They had a clip of his voice from the movie in the commercial. I’m sure they spent plenty of money getting Kevin McCallister.

 

J: They probably had to bribe Macaulay Culkin pretty heavily to do this. I believe that the genesis for this commercial came from Google’s ad people sitting around saying “I bet this would have been totally different if he had one of those Alexa automated things. I wonder if we could get Macaulay Culkin to come back and do that.” I think Macaulay Culkin has always been a really good sport about his Home Alone fame. I think it’s great that he chose to do this. It’s wonderful because we see these old classic movies and we always think about different life is now with video games and cell phones. It’s really interesting to see this ad come up. They are using that emotional tie-in that brings us all together for the holidays. These classic Christmas movies mean so much to us. For a lot of us, it’s not Christmas until we see Die Hard or more Christmassy type movies that don’t involve Bruce Willis like Rudolph. People aren’t in the Christmas mood until they see these movies. Binding that emotional tie to a product endorsement is just a really smart move.

 

Z: One of the things that actually upsets people is if you start doing Christmas marketing before Thanksgiving. That starts to get on people’s nerves. Sometimes it’s okay to do it around Thanksgiving or on Thanksgiving Day. When it starts getting pushed into the stores before Halloween, people get really irate. The first Christmas ad that we saw was actually from Amazon. We’ll talk about it in a minute, but let’s go ahead and play it for you.

 

12:09: Amazon’s Christmas Ad Explained

 

Z:  There are lots of things to talk about in this one. There are two major things that I want to talk about. One is that this is one of the first advertisements that Amazon has done that has their logo without their name in it. That’s something we’ll do on logo design. One of the things about Amazon’s logo is that it has that arrow that points from the A to the Z. Amazon has everything from A to Z is the idea. Another thing to notice about their logo is that the arrow resembles a smile. They started putting that on their boxes to subliminally let you know that a smile is coming to you with this packet. They animated it in this commercial. If you didn’t get it before, you should definitely get it now. I think that was something extremely smart and extremely well thought out as well as a good use of their design.

 

J: I think we’re all going to be staring at Amazon boxes now waiting for it to sing to us. If it starts to sing to you, you might have put too much in the eggnog.

 

Z: That brings up another good point. This ad uses another marketing tool that marketers use all the time. In the commercial, Amazon used a song from the demographic of the buying audience because most of the buying audience is our age now. The point of using songs like that is to push your emotional buttons. Something that we do on purpose is to get you remembering back when you’re enjoying something and then tying it in through the ad. “Can you feel it” ties in with the holiday season feeling. As far as being smart about advertising, this was extremely well done. They also went through different scenes that you might see during the holidays: a single person, a family person, a child. They did this in order to try to get everybody they could get shown in the ad. I really enjoyed this one as well.

 

J: I think it’s great because even if you don’t recognize the song, you get the song stuck in your head. It keeps repeating over and over again. That being combined with a smile just makes you happy. Christmas advertising can do a couple of things emotionally. It can make you miss somebody. Also, it can tie people together. This particular advertisement really tied it together. I think the Home Alone commercial plays on that nostalgia of things that we miss. We miss being a kid and seeing that movie for the first time. The Amazon ad triggers your need to want to feel happy and be in the spirit.

 

Z: Things like this have been going on for years. I want to talk about one of the first commercials to really have a life on its own. We’re going to take a break from talking about 2018 for a minute and I want to jump back to the 70s. I want to talk about the first really brilliant Christmas ad as being one of the first ones that took on a life of its own. Let’s take a minute to watch Coca-Cola’s Hilltop ad from Christmas in the 70s.

 

18:26: Coca-Cola’s 70s Hilltop Christmas Ad Explained

 

Z: Let’s talk about this one for a minute. One of the things you have to remember about when this first came out is this was the early 70s. The people that were ad executives were just coming out of the hippy movement of the late 60s.

 

J: I guess at some point, they decided to put shoes on and get a job.

 

Z: You obviously see a lot of hippy references. The other idea that’s here is the idea of unity. I want to buy the world a Coke because Coca-Cola is a global product. They show different people within the spot that are obviously from different cultures. This shows that Coca-Cola is universal to everyone. There’s the feeling of wanting to give the world a Coke because it is the giving season. In the end, everyone in the ad forms together in the shape of a Christmas tree to really drive that home.

 

J: It’s an iconic commercial, but it’s actually quite dated in the PC factor. If you think about it, Christianity is a small religion in the world. To get that many people of that many different cultural backgrounds together to sing about Christmas is interesting.

 

Z: I don’t know that I would say that Christianity is small. However, it is not as globally represented as America would like to think that it is.

 

J: And everything was spoken and sang in English.

 

Z: If you look at 2018, people would be complaining about why you had the American look like a cowboy and why did you have the Japanese person dressed in a kimono. They would be complaining because we made them look stereotypical. If you take that out, it obviously loses the effectiveness of the ad. That’s only a problem in today’s society.

 

J: We’re just Grinches. All of us are Grinches these days. That is what’s so beautiful about this commercial and so beautiful about it being in the 70s is that people were hungry for that unity at that time. They weren’t Grinches. They wanted something that would tie us all together. Coca-Cola really nailed it with the subtlety of it. There are no cans of Coke in the ad. Most of them are just holding candles, but they keep singing the word Coke over and over.

 

Z: It’s an original song for the advertisement.

 

J: It’s actually quite simple.

 

Z: This is also a commercial that’s been remade as time as gone on. Coca-Cola has done the same song and same idea in different iterations over time. This commercial was so successful that it had sequels. Back to this year, what are some other ones that you’ve seen that you want to go through?

 

J: I can’t remember. I can remember off the top of my head things that failed miserably.

 

Z: What failed miserably?

 

J: Not this year, but have you guys ever seen the ad for K-Mart? K-Mart put out an ad a few years back for Joe Boxer which is a line that K-Mart carried. The ad itself was about Joe Boxers and they have bells hanging from them. There’s a group of men standing in a line. They’re all wearing Joe Boxers.

 

Z: Let’s watch it and then we’ll talk about it. This is from five years ago.

 

J: I mean it is barely suitable for work, but it was on television.

 

Z: Let’s take a look at it.

 

23:53: K-Mart Joe Boxer Ad Explained

 

J: “Show your joe” that’s the name of the ad.

 

Z: I did not recall this until you just mentioned it to me. I do remember it now. Do you remember the impact that this ad had?

 

J: I look back at it now and laugh, but I was horrified when I saw it. Not to be punny, but the balls it took to put that off. It’s a heavy statement. It was so crass. Although I’m all for some edgy advertising and doing things that are a little left of center (Taco Bell usually does a lot of cool, edgy advertising), this one was something else. If any children are watching this ad, they’re watching some guy shake his junk around and they’re all giggling about that.

 

Z: I can’t say that they overshot their demographic because their demographic was probably men who would think this is hilarious. However, it goes on national television. You do have a point there.

 

J: It’s just overkill.

 

Z: Yeah, it’s a bit much. Tell us what you think in the comments on our Facebook.

 

J: I want you to think about it from two different perspectives. I want you to think of it as a “hey Becky come over here and watch this really cool ad” or if you’re sitting in your living room watching Home Alone for the holidays with your children and then the Joe Boxer ad comes on with these dudes shaking their stuff or showing their Joe apparently.

 

Z: There’s another one that I can remember. I’m going to see if I can find it. There’s another one that I remember and I remember it being really good. It was not K-Mart. Another company that invests a lot into their Christmas commercials would be Honda. I think this might be it.

 

28:26: Honda Ads Explained

 

Z: It took 607 tries to get this thing to work. That was not a Christmas commercial, but it was a super cool ad. That’s an online social media ad because it’s longer than your average spot. I’ve looked and I cannot find the ad that I was talking about from back in the day. The reason why is because the campaign has been so successful for Honda over the last several years. They’ve released six new spots in the same idea this year that capitalize on different things, again, marketing back to the people that are actually buying presents with the toys. What I’m going to do is play one of those. They came out with several. Let’s see which ones they came out with this year. You’ll notice these toys if you’re in the parent demographic. You will notice these toys from your own childhood. They’re speaking to the people that would be buying cars. They did Care Bears, the six million dollar, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Voltron. That’s four of them and they actually did a total of six. Which one do you want to look at?

 

J: Care Bears. That’s cute. I’ve never seen that one.

 

Z: The whole idea behind these ads is that to play on the emotions and the memories of their audience. It’s also co-branding because the Care Bear franchise also got involved as well. There are a lot of different marketing tools that are in these ads. There’s one ad that is new for this year that is a car ad. Car people do this a lot during the Christmas season. It’s the night after Christmas and the camera pans through the house with the entire family. People are all cuddled up with whatever they got for Christmas that they love.

 

J: Their favorite big present.

 

Z: Yeah. At the very end, you see the father figure lying in the back of his brand new truck holding it while he goes to sleep. I thought that was a pretty good ad as well.

 

32:37: GMC Ad Explained

 

J: I liked it because it was a very quiet ad. It plays on that feeling you get the night of Christmas after all the presents have been opened.  The house is a mess and it’s now officially quiet. Not just quiet as it is every night, but quiet as in the excitement is over. There’s that peace on Earth feeling that we get on Christmas night. It is just a wonderful feeling that it conjures up inside of you of satisfaction. There’s the buildup the whole season starting in October. The culmination is that evening when you take your favorite thing and you play with it so much that you fall asleep with it. The thing that I like the most about the ad is that it doesn’t leave adults out of the equation. All we are is kids with credit cards anyway. I think the fact that everybody, including mom and dad, got to snuggle up with the thing that they were really happy they received. Having the dad sleeping in the bed of the truck is just perfect. It plays on the idea that the childlike wonder and feeling that the holiday brings everyone.

 

Z: You bring up another good point is that there is no voiceover in this ad. It is music and visuals. You completely get it hence us talking about it here today. If you had put voiceover all over the top of that ad, it may have lost its emotional impact. The other good thing to remember when making advertising is less is more sometimes.

 

J: Absolutely. Christmas spends a lot of time talking about children, toys, and stuffed animals. Then, you’ve got the ads for jewelry and cars, but I think that combining both of those things in one ad where we are all just kids at Christmastime is what I liked most about the ad.

 

Z: Let’s look at one more ad from this year. Then, we will jump into some of the other ones that we remember from the past that were really good. We could do this forever.

 

36:35: Toyota Ad Explained

 

Z:  Talking about the lack of voiceover for the GMC ad that’s a theme that we see in a lot of these Christmas ads. A lot of them are more creative in nature. They really depend on the emotional delivery both visually and through song.

 

J: I would say that on average, these successful holiday ads have a formula. The formula tends to be little to no voiceover. They rely more on visuals or they rely on music. It’s usually music that is recognizable like songs we haven’t heard in a while or classic songs. It brings back that feeling of nostalgia. Some of these Motown songs make us want to move. I think that the lack of voiceover is a good thing because it doesn’t tell you what to feel. It doesn’t tell you to buy the product.

 

Z: You don’t feel like you’re being shouted at.

 

J: You don’t feel like you’re being sold. You feel like you’re being appreciated as a customer in some regard with these holiday ads. We spend a good portion of the year being screamed at or being told what to buy. I think Christmas is a time to take a break from all of that and just leave it to the consumer to interpret what they’re seeing.

 

Z: The holiday season is something that is emotional universally. All across the world it’s recognized as a time for family, love, forgiveness and peace.

 

J: The whole idea is to get rid of the Grinch. We’ve been indoctrinated into Dr. Seuss’s idea that there is a grumpy party-pooper every season. Christmas is no different. There’s always a Grinch. There is somebody that is just not feeling it. I think it’s always our mission to try and get that person to feel the Christmas spirit. Even if you’re not a faith believer or a Santa believer, there is still a magic in the season that people tie to emotion right away. If anything is going to make you loyal to a brand, it’s speaking to someone’s emotion, not to their wallet. You got Black Friday for that. Christmas time, specifically, is a time for us to take a break from being told what to do. I think that creates less actual sales and more actual loyal brand followers.

 

Z: There are a lot of motifs that you’ll see in seasonal advertising. Like you said with Black Friday, it changes depending on what season you’re in. There are lots of things that are done like that. For example, an ad that ties in to the show that you’re watching. A lot of the Super Bowl ads tie in to the show that you’re watching.

 

J: It’s still dominating on whatever emotion you’re feeling. One of the things that Zachary is talking about is the Vikings. In between the show, they play ads that are Viking related. American Express does a great job at this. What you’re doing is capitalizing on the dominant emotion of the viewership. Vikings denote a certain kind of emotional state where companies use that in their advertising.

 

Z: The business side of that is that it costs a lot of money to make a television show. One of the ways that producers supplement the cost is through co-branding or endorsement within movies. One of the films that made fun of this was Wayne’s World. In this movie, he’s making fun of film endorsements by being overly obvious about film endorsements. It happens all the time in film. What the Vikings have done is they have added a television spot that is directly related to their television show at the very end of the segment before the commercials run. It’s actually a commercial that is provided to you by the filmmaker as opposed to the advertisers. In the world of marketing and communications, there is so much to it. There are so many different options that are out there.

 

J: Gently bringing the consumer out of the world of Vikings and into the world of retail.

 

Z: It all depends on your budget because you can do all these really cool things if you can afford it. It also depends on your connections. You have to be able to know the filmmaker and have that idea to get that out there. If you want to make a really cool, impactful ad like some of the ones we saw here today, it’s going to take a good production to do that. It really depends on what you’re trying to do and what your budget can afford. People ask me “how much will it cost me to do this?” I tell people all the time that it depends. If it’s this, it is going to cost this much. If you want Morgan Freeman to come do your voiceover, it’s going to be fifteen thousand dollars more.

 

J: If you want Macaulay Culkin to come in and stay in the Winnetka House, how much money do you think they spent on that?

 

Z: I don’t know. Even just the exterior alone has been used so often, that whatever minimal amount that they may have gotten the first time has gone up since then.

 

J: That house actually exists. I think it’s on Lankan Street. I wish I lived in that house.

 

Z: You want to introduce this one? It’s a classic.

 

J: Yeah. One of my favorite commercials that I think is really good is the M&Ms ad. In the ad, the peanut M&M –

 

Z: I think it’s the peanut M&M and the chocolate M&M.

 

J: The M&Ms sneak downstairs on Christmas because they hear a noise. They are so excited and they turn around to see Santa standing there. Then, Santa turns around and sees them standing there. What happens next is iconic.

 

45:38: Christmas M&M Ad Explained

 

Z: One of the things that people don’t know about that commercial is there’s actually a short version and a long version of the spot. The short version is the one that everybody knows. Back in the day, you would do a short form commercial that you would play on television and then it would have a long form if you searched it on the Internet. We’ll play the long form version of this. That was pretty cool.

 

J: That was pretty cool. Actually one of the things that I was going to say about this spot that I enjoyed so much is that it was so short, so succinct and to the point. The red and yellow M&Ms had already made a name for themselves as mascots. So, we recognize them right away. They are always arguing with each other. One of them is always crabby while the other one is really optimistic. They’re both coming in and talking about Santa which is such a sweet little moment. Then, they look at each other and they see that Santa really does exist. How cool would it be if your M&Ms came to life and started talking to you? I think the fact that Santa turns around and sees that the M&Ms really do exist is such a beautiful little spot. The fact that they added the other section to it is really great. It totally changes the feeling of the commercial completely. I found myself smiling when the M&M says “do you think I ruined Christmas?” Then, all of the sudden they show people exchanging gifts. I really felt this warm and fuzzy feeling where I think “that’s so great.” It really hits that “buy the world a Coke” feeling that you discussed earlier where it’s bringing people together where the same product is being shared between neighbors.

 

Z: We could literally go through these commercials analyzing them for the rest of the day. What I want to do is leave this episode with one of the most endearing ones that we’ve found from this season.

 

J:  It might not be on your televisions since it is foreign. It was playing through social media pretty popularly.

 

Z: That’s the thing about the life of these ads is they have their own life on television, but social media is so much bigger now that if it’s a good enough spot, it can be recognized all over the world.

 

J: It’s also a more cost efficient alternative to advertising on Primetime cable television.

 

Z: It is because the media cost is less. Plus, if it gets shared, there is no media cost in that. All you have is production costs.

 

J: And you have engagement with customers.

 

Z: Absolutely. That’s another move the industry is making as a whole. It doesn’t mean that you don’t need to make videos. People actually make them more often now because you don’t have the media costs that are associated with it. The media costs, generally speaking, are lower than the thousands of dollars that you spend on television.

 

J: With people sharing so much now on streaming movies, there is still a place for big media buy on television. I think a lot of people are watching things on YouTube or through social media or Facebook watch. The social media aspect of these videos is just amazing.

 

Z: I don’t want to downplay television advertisements too much. There is still room for television advertising. There are ways to make it more affordable on the local level. On the national level, it’s still really expensive. It’s still a good way to reach people depending on what it is that you are selling. Nowadays, you definitely don’t want to leave out the social media aspect of it. Let’s watch this last commercial. Then, we’ll discuss it a little bit and dismiss the show so that you guys can go and have a great Christmas.

 

53:36: Last Ad Explained

 

Z:  The great thing about this ad and how it was done is that it starts off with a man and his child. He is playing his favorite song and he’s dancing with his kid. Then, it shows different scenes where he does this throughout his son’s whole life. It goes from the child being an infant to a young boy at the toy store. Then, it jumps to where he’s in the car which goes to the father and son being in public where the father is trying to embarrass his son. It goes beyond that to that song meaning something to him emotionally because of his father. He passes that on with his own son, but shares it with the dad via technology which is what the ad is all about. I think it’s a very impactful and very good commercial.

 

J: I think that the iPhone and the Galaxy Note phones are kicking themselves. I think LG is kicking themselves for not having this ad come from their company because it is such a touching ad. It transcends language. You don’t know it is a foreign ad until the end. You don’t know the product is foreign because everything about it is so familiar. The idea that life goes on and the bond between a parent and child carries on throughout generations. It’s such a wonderfully touching ad for both generations. How many times have you said to your child or your grandchildren “back in my day we didn’t have cellphones, we didn’t have the luxury of just taking pictures of things to prove things.” Also on the same side, you hear about all the negative aspects of having smartphones and what they’re doing to our kids. I think to overcome that, they’ve got a way to bridge the gap using technology: ways to carry on old traditions through new technology. It was such a soft blend. It was such a soft commentary on the effective, positive uses of technology. It gets you right in the heart strings.

 

Z: If you didn’t notice, you can go back to overanalyze the ad because that’s what we do since we make them. If you were to go back and watch the ad again, you’ll notice that at the beginning it starts with a radio and then it goes to a C.D. player in the car. Then, it goes to the flip phone, so you see technology advancing. The idea of the technology company is showing their appreciation for the evolution of technology in the ad.

 

J: Different ways to embarrass your children.

 

Z: Absolutely.

 

J: I like how technology has kept up with that.

 

Z: That’s the ad we are going to leave you with today. I wish all of you to have a merry Christmas and have a happy New Year as well.

 

J: Happy New Year and Merry Christmas. Happy whatever it is that you celebrate.  Happy Holidays. I hope that the spirit of the season takes you in good places this year and we’ll see you in the next year.

 

Z: Thanks guys.

 

J: Bye

 

 

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