Newsletter
Christmas Crackers From BMW and Dutch State Lotto
With Canal+ and more European highlights
Happy holidays from BMW and Jung von Matt in Hamburg! “The Gift” features a little boy who guides his parents to the present he most desires. But the resulting huge box isn’t for him. Instead, it’s something he wants to give his grandmother. Big awwws all around! But … it turns out the gift is for him after all: a sassy child seat he can use to sit shotgun in oma’s BMW 1500 without cramping her style—or his. We like how the vibes change, alternating from generically touching to comedically gangster, with cute bowties in between.
TBWA\Neboko and the Dutch State Lotto tout the New Year’s Eve draw. The work features a man who, with his dog Dibbes, visits an elderly neighbor. But Dibbes has too much fun and chews up a lotto ticket the neighbor left sitting around. Naughty Dibbes! The man runs out to replace it, only to discover the woman meant to offer it to him as a gift. We appreciate how this work doesn’t focus so much on winning. Bottom line: by gifting a ticket, you’re offering a little rub of luck to someone you care for.
We’re gonna take a break from holiday stuff with this “trailer” from Canal+ by BETC Paris. In a way, it’s a festive celebration of its own: a fake serialization of the network’s scrappy start in 1984, through its brief time in ad-free soft-porn cable, before it became a heavyweight film and series maker. We move through the drama of French confinement when it went all-access, and into the streaming age, when it bonded with Netflix. The work concludes: “What if the greatest series is the one you’ve been living with us for 40 years?” Improbably (or not?), we’d watch this show. “The Trailer” is a solid specimen of both the network and agency’s storytelling chops.
We opened with holidays and senior citizens, and that’s how we’re gonna close. “A New Beginning” is the title of Judas’ work for electronics retailer FNAC in Portugal. It features a schoolteacher who’s retired and, galvanized by notes from former students, she decides to start recording her reflections. Her daughter catches her doing it on a tape recorder, 13 Reasons Why-style, and decides to gift her the necessary technology to make her … a podcaster?
If we’ve learned anything from this, it’s that there’s a time for everything. The time for podcasting is in retirement, apparently.
See you all in the new year!
Angela Natividad is the European markets editor at Muse by Clio. She also writes about gaming and fashion, and whatever else she’s interested in, really. She’s based in Paris and North Italy, so if you’re local, say hi. She might eat all your food.
