I’m a sucker for the holidays, and while so many brands put out holiday work year after year, only a few really manage to do it right. It’s a crowded landscape filled with tropes and cheesiness, but when a brand finds a way to break through in an authentic way, it truly stands out.
Stop motion was a bold choice. It’s a 100-year-old low-fi visual language that doesn’t shine nor look like the latest 4k HDR OLED technology, but it’s an imperfect style that feels truly human. The animation paired with the live action works magically. There is no artifice, it’s simple, it’s charming, and it just works in not just telling a human story but showcasing how the brand plays a part in that. I’d need an entire other article to talk about the music. This work truly felt like a labor of love and more importantly, it made me feel something.
Apple | ‘RIP Leon’ (in-house)
Brian Siedband, co-founder and co-CCO, Quality Meats
I’d like to hope “RIP Leon” is the ad we’d have made if we had this brief. It does everything we set out to do with our work: highly entertaining storytelling that puts the product at the center, dramatizing its benefit in the ultimate way (unsending a text about death is pretty high stakes). And then crafting it to the highest level. Which they did in spades, with weird music, a lizard and an amazing looking fella. The combo alone of that guy and a lizard are worthy of an episodic dramedy on Hulu or whatever.
Puma/Noah | ‘Winning Streak’ by Champagne
Jonathan Schoenberg, executive creative director/partner, TDA Boulder
The ad I am most jealous of this year is so cool and did not get that much attention. I love the Noah X Puma collab spot. The spot is Euro-cool, so I am going to try not to say too much about it because that would be not so cool. Cool is effortless, or at least appears that way. I called Brian Billow, who directed it. He was laughing because the agency (Champagne) took its time choosing him and approving the spot the way he hoped to shoot it. But when they pulled the trigger, it was all love and you can feel it.
