Well, it’s that time of year again — car-top pine needles, spiked raw egg beverages, off-key caroling, fantastical sweaters, and of course, cheesy TV commercials.
When I was kid back in the Stone Age, we were pried away from our 19-inch black-and-white TV for one structured December night, when our family had an annual tradition of sitting around the dining room table with milk, cookies and mountains of department store Christmas catalogs* from which to peruse and highlight for The List. This would eventually be hand-delivered to the downtown department store’s walk-through holiday display — Santa’s Workshop — where you’d “mail” your letter, then follow it as it journeyed on a conveyor belt through a Mailroom, Toy Workshop, and other extensive dioramas where animatronic stuffed pantyhose elves were generally making a mess of things. Luckily, the “real” Santa was there waiting at the end, so you could reinforce your wishlist verbally.
Well, today, the Post Office is failing, that department store is gone, and those elves are probably hibernating in some back room leaking moldy stuffing, but commercialism definitely isn’t — it saturates our environment, via e-mail, phone, TV and here, at Motionographer! So without further ado, let’s try and escape any more fluff and review some of the better holiday-themed digital moving picture ads in this first of three weekly Motionographer Holiday Catalog posts.
American Red Cross 2011 Holiday Giving with Fred, directed by Andy Hall / Elastic (Agency BBDO). Also check out 2011 Resolve to Give from the same campaign.
John Lewis’ The Long Wait from Blink.
Herman Miller Holiday Video from dress code.
BT Vision Christmas 2011 from weareseventeen.
And lastly (but definitely not least), comes an ambitious hand-made interactive project from Peter Sluszka / Hornet for PNC:
PNC’s 12 Days of Christmas from Peter Sluszka / Hornet.
And don’t miss Hornet’s extensive behind-the-scenes process tour (+ credits)!
*As noted by a colleague, this Toy Catalog version might be more memorable for some of you.
Special thanks to Motionographer’s Brandon Lori and Daniel Coutinho for the help!