Winter Commercials 09 pt.4
Wednesday, December 23, 2009 at 11:18AM This commercial is very straightforward. A little girl feels guilt of her recent wrongdoings after receiving exactly what she wanted for Christmas. The part that I find the most amusing are the facial expressions at the end. The dad's gesture and facial expression in particular are ambiguous communicating a range of different ideas, which I read as saying... "You walked right into that one." "What can I say?" "Hey, you got them cause they were really cheap." "Not my problem." "Check and mate." "Tadaaa." "Merry Christmas anyway."
This one is another commercial ripe with ambiguous facial expression as an end cap. The kids and the husband are already occupied with their gifts at the beginning of the commercial. After the big screen HDTV is unwrapped, the parent go back and forth coding their words carefully and somewhat awkwardly in Santa talk. After the wife says, "Maybe Santa doesn't need any help doing Santa's job," the husband bites his lower lip as he butters his bread. Both parents put up strange smiles perhaps to fool the kids while keeping up with the Santa scenario. Perhaps because the conversation was quickly careening toward a sensitive subject when no one wants a fight near the Christmas tree. Or perhaps the wife stayed within a budget while still obtaining wonderful gifts. Judging from her face at the end of the commercial, it's hard to tell what's really going on behind the scene.
Take single clever idea. Communicate it all within a single scene. Add slow motion for dramatic effect and some suspenseful music and you'll have a perfect Christmas commercial. It feels shorter than other 30 second commercials because everything is compressed and efficient. Also, for a little while Santa's runs in rhythm with the music.
Reader Comments (2)
All of the links seem to have been removed by the user. Do you get the same results?
@ Bryan
Yeah. Unfortunately, such is the drawback of linking to other's material. Oh well. Maybe I can find some other examples.