The Commercialisation of Christmas: Tis Great!
Well, it’s the fourth of December, so we’ve had the ould Christmas ads on the telly for the last month and a half.
I think it’s high time we had a critical sconse at the whole ruckus. And y’know, people complain about having Christmas ads on the telly so soon, but at the end of the day, they’re not going to do much fucking good if broadcast for the first time on Christmas Eve, now, are they? “Whatever should I get Aunt Bridgie for Christmas? Maybe I’ll give a give a give a give a Garmin! Oh fuck, the shops are closed! Humbug!” and so on and so forth. We need a good run of Christmas ads, lest we be forced to employ exhausting creativity in our gift-buying decisions. Leave the soulless advertising executives and their marketing minions alone! They’ve brought us so much premature Yuletide joy; without them, we wouldn’t have …
The Five Best Christmas Ads Ever!
Coz I don’t care how fucking early in the year it is!
5: John Lewis’ “Remember How Christmas Used To Feel”.
I do have a heart. I keep it in a box under my bed. It flutters a bit when this ad comes on the telly, even though there’s a version of the utterly ‘orrible Sweet Child O’ Mine playing over the images of childlike awe and wonderment. Yes, I said Sweet Child O’ Mine is ‘orrible. No, I didn’t just mean that particular cover version. Anyway, John Lewis reminds us that presents are great, and you can’t argue with that, because they are. Even if you can’t buy theirs in Ireland.
4: Penneys. Got A Whole Lot Of Things For Christmas. Got A Lot For The Family.
Tra la la la! We need more ads that have choirs singing tra la la la! If there were less versions of Sweet Child O’ Mine and more tra la la las in the world, then it would definitely snow for Christmas in Ireland. To demonstrate the power of this mighty jingle, sit a load of twenty-something strangers in a room. Then have one of them start the Penneys song, and they’ll be all pissing themselves in jolly camaraderie before you know it. The smell won’t be great, but the atmosphere will. So long as you don’t smell it.
3: Kellogg’s “Ho Ho Ho”.
As a child, I thought it was mighty for teaching me the word “unorthodox”. As an adult, it makes me as weepy as a bolt-on boob. OH GOD IT’S SO CUTE! SHE’S WEARING JAMMIES! SHE SAYS HO HO HO! I CAN BARELY STAND IT!
2: An Post’s “Walking In The Air”
It’s basically the Aled Jones bit from the snowman, with a couple of added letters swirling into a postbox at the end. It’s still brilliance on a schtick. Plus it leaves out the bit where the bloody Snowman melts at the end and drowns your childhood in a puddle of slush; surely that’s all you ever asked for?
But even snowmen, magic, and breakfast cereals pale in comparison to the next tear-jerker, the most Irish Christmas ad ever conceived by man or beast. It’s got hints of emigration! It’s got shit weather! It’s… got … MAMMIES! It’s…
There’s not a soul in Ireland who doesn’t feel this ad like Oprah feels her fans. For Christ’s sake, I was crying screen-grabbing the image. Set to Dusty Springfield’s “Going Back”, TV3’s Alan Hughes is driven home to the ould farmhouse where Mammy’s been going mad making the dinner and turning down the leaba. Watching this ad is recommended for anyone wishing to seep in the Irish psyche. Tis linked above. Go on, indulge yourself.
Now, granted, there didn’t seem to be much point to this ad; the ESB had no rivals back then to advertise against, so the only purpose the ad served was to make you want all the posh gizmos in Alan’s Mammy’s kitchen (ooh, electric blanket!). I don’t know if it led to a nationwide spending spree by blue-rinsers moist at the thought of shiny new immersions switches; I was only about four when I first saw this ad and I’d no notion you could ever move out from home (my elder siblings were still tucked away in box rooms, sometimes with new spouses in tow). So whether the ad’s power directly benefitted our national power supply, I’m not sure. More importantly, it doesn’t matter. This is the Christmas feeling to end all Christmas feelings. This is why we love The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl. The Irish are drawn to the poignant like moths to Stephen Fry’s head.
Now. It being Friday, and you lot probably having a shed-load of Christmas shopping to do over the weekend, I can’t end this blog post on a sour note, as I’d planned to. So instead, I’ll leave it til Monday to follow up with the five worst Christmas ads, and we shall have the grinchy fun and frolics. Oh yes!
Have a good weekend. I love you all!
So in the 3rd world pope ruled south penneys is primark? Lets boycott (Irish term there) Christmas and go back to the roots of it with the solstice and people grateful to be surviving winter. ‘Solstice, its rebirth of the sun not savior lets hope for some bumper crops, tra la la la la la la la’
Yule never know how hard it is to be so old to remember when wise men had to go around in threes for protection against dinosaurs.
Whenever a lofty Christian tells me that the season is all about celebrating the birth of Jesus and that we have no right to be going around worshipping jolly fat men in red suits, I remember how the Christians highjacked the old pagan festivals, and I punch him in the balls.
Ah no. I don’t really.
I’ve never seen that ESB ad. And anyway WTF are the ESB flogging ya anyway.
What about the Coca-Cola wan where the huge truck with the huge engine and enough lights to cause a lunar eclipse on the sun drives through the countryside, belching out fumes and using up four squillion gallons of fuel per 100 metres while discreetly not mentioning christmas at all…. oh…. right.
I covered what they’re “flogging ya” in the post, Vince!
Galwaywegian, I like the Coca-Cola ad, but hate myself for liking it, and there’s no joy in being that ashamed of myself. And yes, the convoy seems excessive. Is there that much demand for Coke at Christmas? Are people using it to disinfect their turkeys? I much prefer the one with the little girl who gets a Coke from Santa until she’s an ould wan and she gives him a coke back. Again, Mammies are involved.
Hola Sweary!
My favourite is the lovely Guinness advert where it show everyone going home from the pub urinating in different places.
Besos
Manuel
But where the heck were you to buy all the stuff. Could you get the ESB yellar-truck to hump the dishwasher/’lecky-blanky for you at one time ?.
I’m nearly sure you could, now that I think of it. Didn’t they have the “Put It On The Bill” slogan? You bought a washing machine in the ESB shop, then you paid for it through your ESB monthly bills. Don’t think they do it anymore, but that was a possibility well into this Millennium.
Manuel, I feel like a national traitor for not including the widdling Guinness ad, but fact remains I just don’t care that much for it.
I want to kill the beardy bloke in the Meteor ad. Only saying.
Turn off that lamp light, get rid of that feckin’ electric blanket! Think of the ‘vironment fer feck sake!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDoDUC9M0Sg
For me it’s not Christmas until that one is on.
It’s a much younger ad than the An Post one … I think? I don’t rememeber seeing that til I was in my early teens or so. I don’t know; trying to remember. The An Post one signals the start of MY Christmas … I love it.
But yeah, back when electric blankets weren’t so evil. Aaah, the innocence.
Ah, the Kellogg’s ad. What parent doesn’t cherish the thought that their infant daughter might wander into the living room at night to find a large, wheezing, bearded intruder, making himself at home in her father’s armchair. Every parent’s dream, surely?
Giv’a giv’a Garmin… makes me want to go a harmin’. Does SatNav point the way to hell?
No, Flann. SANTA. You’re thinking of Satan.
Govstooge, I really like the Garmin ad. How strange that we disagree, after all these years! It’s nearly as poignant as the ESB ad!
The ESB ad is indeed poignant, I go misty eyed at the mere mention of Dusty Springfield, leccy blankies et al. But Alan Hughes! Didn’t he present that shite game show Talkabout back in the 90s while wearing a stripy jacket? He should never have come home, the git.
On the contrary! It’s clearly the being away that ruined him. He should have stayed at home with the electric blanket and the shiny new hob.
I have to back up the Cokey folk here. Tis no yuletide til the holidays are coming (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvDS_pRjI5c) still sends a pleasant shiver through me.
Ooh Oooh Oooh or the bears!! Ah, the bears
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Sz56mtQB1M&feature=related
My favorite is the Maxwell House coffee commercial where the son comes home from college early in the morning and starts up a pot of coffee and his mother and father wake up to the aroma of freshly brewing coffee..come downstairs and then hugs and mugs of coffee all round…makes me tear up every time….especially when I consider that the likelihood is mine will expect me to get up and make the coffee for them (as they hand me bags of laundry to be done….)!!!
The bears is like Coke’s post-Christmas ad, isn’t it? “January depression, still, here’s some lovely bears.” I think it’s very nice of them to think of us and our cute-o-meters like that.
I think Maxwell House coffee ads are made by the devil, MaryAnn. Maxwell House coffee is the worst kind of coffee. It’s all my mam buys and it tastes of death. Don’t be fooled!