We've yet to stuff ourselves with cornbread and turkey, but thanks to the advent of shopping starting around the Thanksgiving holiday, we've already seen plenty of Christmas ads start hitting the Internet and TV airwaves. One of these is Apple's new ad, and it's an ad that's a whole lot different than the trendy, pop-oriented ads the company often prefers. In fact, it features Mary Shelley's famed creation Frankenstein and a traditional holiday carol. Do give the new ad a watch, below.
The nice thing about this particular ad is that it offers a compelling and honestly pretty emotional story. I'm not all that used to Apple ads making me cry, but this one is adorable and even a little sentimental---again not adjectives that I'm normally used to with Apple content. The ad features Frankenstein getting ready for the holidays. He's clearly as misunderstood in this ad as he has been in literature and the movies, but he has a plan this Christmas, buying some goods and heading down for the town's Christmas tree lighting ceremony.
In the town square, good 'ol Frankie pulls out red and green lightbulbs to connect to the electric sockets in his neck. He also pulls out an Apple product so he can sing along to "There's No Place Like Home For The Holidays." The town is a little weirded out by the experience at first, but one little girl takes a chance on Frankenstein and helps him to sing along. By the end the whole village is happy because they've "opened their heart(s)" on the holiday.
As I said, it's pretty sentimental. Then again, around this time of year, overemotional often works.
Last year, for instance, we got that horrifically sad commercial about the old man who celebrated Christmas alone for years and then went to lengths to fake his death to get his kids home for the holidays. Yes, that's a real ad and it's still devastating a year later. There was also the one about the lonely man on the moon and the little girl who saw him. If you want to go back a little farther to 2014, there was that other John Lewis ad about Monty The Penguin that was also wildly emotional. It's not like Apple is doing something new here, but it's still pretty artful.
Heading into the holiday season, expect a lot of ads to be thrown your way. Hopefully, some of these will cut through all the noise.
