Christmas Ad Nauseum

Like it or not, the Christmas season is here.

And while lights and window paint before the 6th of December might disgust you, the festive season is for better or worse a huge commercial event, and as anyone who has ever organised any type of event knows, six weeks build up for an event isn’t really all that much.

Therefore, we’ve been subject to numerous adverts on TV, radio and beyond since early to mid November. Subjected being the operative word. Because having to listen to Christmas ads when you’re just getting Halloween out of your head is one thing, but listening to some of the dodge in the Christmas pile is quite another.

For some reason, this year has seen a huge amount of ads on radio that involve taking the tune to various Christmas songs/carols and putting them together with product-suggestive lyrics, “Jingle Bells, the bathroom smells, time to call Daft Dave” proving a fair gauge of what we’re dealing with here. I’ll be honest with you, most of them are so bad – Kinder Surprise ads bad - that I normally switch the radio over on hearing them, so I don’t really know what any of them are for. Just as well, maybe. Jingle Bells gets a fairly bad oul touch when it comes to the sing-a-long treatment, but it also provides one of the undoubted pick of the radio advertising bunch, involving none other than master of lottery-related ceremonies Ronan Collins singing for a Christmas charity at the end of his appeal. He even does the high bit at the end, the big legend.

On the telly, things are generally a wee bit better. Meteor, who of course are famed for making totally unannoying ads, have actually turned it around a bit. Even though the ads make you wonder do either couple spend ANY time alone at all, they have made quite an amusing ad about the fact the girls, who are incidentally the archetypal speech and drama students, are going Christmas spending in November. That’s some damn fine breaking the fourth wall. Other highlights include an ad for Boots that takes a very Tim Burton approach to Christmasthis year, with exaggerated make up, crazy hairdos and scary (ish) background music abounding. Apart from that, most advert makers have been too lazy to make Christmas ads, merely superimposing snow effects onto the screen, or maybe that jingly-jangly noise that is the international sound for Christmas. Not even Playstation have come out with an ad yet this year, despite their great record in making good festive ads. Their “Get on Board” big pile o’ people ad last year was one of the best out. Let’s hope it’s on the way.

Of course, no mention of Christmas ads would be complete without a mention to what has become THE Christmas ad, seeing it for the first time is the equivalent of cutting the tape at the opening of a supermarket with novelty scissors, the advertisement that has come to known as “Holidays are Comin’”. It’s an undoubted modern classic, and whatever age you are, you can’t help but get just a bit excited when you see it… Coca Cola have a huge historical link to Christmas; it was they after all who bought Santa his first red costume, and if having one seminal ad wasn’t enough, their family of Polar Bears, the Oxo family of the animal kingdom, but cuter, are also consistently popular.

People might give out about Christmas and consumerism and whatnot, but it’s a crucial part of the occasion that conjures up much of the positive imagery of the season, and everything beyond that is simply down to the people you’re spending Christmas with. Now, who wants a Quality Street?

By: Paddy Duffy

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