1. Folgers Home from College for Christmas Past and Present
I'm sorry, but your Hallmark commercial is in another list. While the greeting card conglomerate may be renowned for having the most moving and sentimental holiday ads, I personally think that Folgers Coffee consistently outdoes them. For one they're shorter. Hallmark usually deals in long form, constructing elaborate holiday narratives that tend to drag, and they rely on traditional holiday iconography a bit too much. Everything takes place in a rustic cottage or someplace over the river and through the woods, which can be alienating to viewers who are unfamiliar with those settings. This is where Hallmark fails and Folgers succeeds. The famous coffee company understands that Christmas isn't locked up in a Norman Rockwell painting or kept inside Thomas Kincade's snow-covered cottage - it's a feeling that is shared the whole world over from the quaintest country areas to the bustling big cities. They also understand that the beauty of Christmas is found most often in its simplicity. There are no two minute ads here, where a daughter gives a
long, detailed account of her childhood. No, you see, in a Folgers ad there are no wasted words or belabored feeling. Folgers works with simpler motifs, like the child returning home from college. They produced two commercialized variations of that motif both in 1997 and 2009 and it was very effective each time. In the commercial (each one only about a minute or less) we see a young man return home from his studies abroad. Each time, he's greeted by his sister (young and cute in '97, cute and older in '09). Theirs is a quiet and joyous rendezvous (silent, as not to wake the 'rents) before the big brother retreats to the kitchen to make coffee. As the coffee brews and the siblings reconnect, the parents slowly wake and amble down the stairs. It's a happy heartfelt reunion as the son is greeted tearfully by mom, and proudly by dad. The house is filled with joyous laughter and the spirit of the season is reflected in a family once again complete and together. That's it. No overlong, overblown Hallmark holiday melodrama; just a son coming home, a sister overjoyed, and a family happy and complete. Folgers doesn't over-complicate the plot - families grow up, grow apart and miss each other. When they do get together and reconnect it is usually a time for celebration and love, and if you can get a good cup of coffee on top of that, then it's just about the best Christmas ever. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4kNl7cQdcU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZnqBL6iYjA We know return you to your regularly scheduled browsing. Any questions or comments? Please share them in the comments section below.