We often hear people say, ‘It’s not Christmas until I see that Coca-Cola ad’. It remains such an honour to have been part of the making of that icon which has been running since 1996!
As a child growing up in the 1970s, I had the same feeling about the Norelco ad. More recently, John Lewis has created a similar buzz about their ads. So what is it that moves an ad away from simply being just another one-off ‘advertisement’ into becoming a recurring part of the architecture and anticipation of the Christmas season?
We think there are 2 key ingredients:
1. Moving people just a bit closer to the idealised Christmas – that whimsical, dreamy one we all long for with snowy landscapes, magical characters and stirring music.
2. Creating a storyline that gives the advertised brand a believable (albeit magical) reason to be part of it – afterall Coke bottles & cans adorned with Santa images would surely arrive on Coca-Cola trucks!
Here are 3 of our all-time favourites that have at one time or another signalled ‘Christmas is here’:
1. Norelco — with that delightful razor swooshing through the snow and linking its name rather boldly to the season.
2. Budweiser – those majestic horses prancing proudly through the snow bringing us the king of beers.
3. Coca-Cola – that caravan of trucks traversing through the snowy landscape bringing us our Santa Packs.
Here’s a collection of the ads since the mid 1990’s when we launched it as ‘Santa Packs are Coming’… still the best we think (but we would, wouldn’t we?)
