Marc Lewis' Christmas ad rankings: pass the Kleenex, I love everything about Heathrow's bears
The festive season is almost upon us – which means it’s time for advertisers to up their budgets and start producing shiny snow-covered campaigns again. This Christmas Marc Lewis, the highly-revered creative mind who leads the School of Communications Arts London, will review (in his opinion) the merits of some of the biggest brands' seasonal spots with a creative eye, separating the Christmas crackers from the turkeys.
I wish I wrote this commercial / Heathrow Airport
I love it. I love it. I love it.
One of the best books ever written on how to evaluate the quality of a piece of creative communication is Made to Stick by Dan and Chip Heath. In it, they say that ideas should be simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional and have story. I teach my students this framework in the first month of school, getting them to score their ideas out of ten in each of these six dimensions (S.U.C.C.E.S).
It would be so easy to make the case to my students that Heathrow's Christmas film by Havas should get top marks.
Is it ground-breaking, challenging, provocative in a Steve Henry sort of a way? No, but it is still top quality, top drawer, top banana.
It will resonate with families everywhere. My wife will cry. My kids will want the bears.
I wish I wrote this commercial. Imagine how talented you need to be to make Heathrow feel warm!
This 90-second ad brings back the Heathrow bears for the third-year running and tells the story of how the grandparent teddies (Doris and Edward) who live in Florida, communicate with their London-based family through Skype. They then get frustrated with Skype and take a flight to surprise their London based family for Christmas.
Pass the Kleenex.
Every frame is scattered with laughs or splattered with tears. The choice of soundtrack, Every Time You Go Away by Paul Young, is perfect. Everything about this commercial is class.
Score out of 5?
This gets my first 5.
Keep up with The Drum's 2018 Christmas coverage here.