Christmas advertisements are all about making friends and family feel loved by showering them with gifts. We expect to see commercials laden with images of rosy-cheeked children whose dreams come true when Santa delivers the perfect present wrapped in shiny packaging.
That being said, it\u2019s pretty rare to see an ad that reflects the meaning of the holidays in the larger sense without being completely corny. It\u2019s even less common to see an ad that isn't just pedaling a product.
This week Ikea Spain released a touching video that goes against the grain of typical Christmas advertising and in 2 minutes, reminds us of the deeper meaning during the holiday season.
In the video a group of children are asked to write two letters listing what they want this Christmas, one to the Three Kings, Spain\u2019s holiday gift bearers, and one letter to their parents.
Writing to the Three Kings, the children ask for things like toys, new gaming systems and one girl even asks for a flying Unicorn. But when they write to their parents all they really want is to spend more quality time with them.
When the children are asked which letter they would send if they could only send one, they unanimously answer that they would send the letter to their parents.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dAQ6_gXQy4
Predictable? Maybe. Manipulative? Slightly. But I think you\u2019d have a hard time finding someone who wasn't a little bit moved by Ikeas's\u00a0experiment. Credit this to a sweet story line and genuine responses from the children and their parents, even Scrooge would have a hard time criticizing this campaign.
And the best part is this ad isn't asking the consumer for anything. There\u2019s no insinuating that your holiday will be incomplete without a kitchen redesign to impress your guests. The Ikea brand isn't even mentioned until the end of the video. It\u2019s really just a feel good video and another way that Ikea has used ingenuity to create memorable content.
