Top 6 Christmas ads from around the globe

A look at some of our favourite Christmas-flavoured ads from brands abroad.

This Christmas, we decided to do something different; a flight from tradition, we looked for Christmas-themed adverts created in, and for, markets outside India. The exercise has been interesting - strangely, looking at commercials that are so far away and so far removed from one's home market, and the realities therein, can make one examine brand messages closer to home with fresh eyes.

Expectedly, the bulk of the Christmas-based ad films out there are by retailers (apparel chains, popular stores that sell groceries/household products) like Waitrose, Sainsbury, David Jones Store, John Lewis, Marks & Spencer, et al.

Broadly, gifting (Boots, Argos), family and together-ness are the themes that stand out, amid clichéd 'Christmasy' visuals like snow, decorated trees, fireplaces, lots of children and packaged gifts... a lot like every other Diwali ad starts looking like a scene from one long, colourful movie about crackers, blossoming rockets in the sky, mithai dabbas and beautiful ethnic clothes worn by happy, bejeweled people.

Interestingly, these advertisers are big on animation (within that, teddies are a favourite) and many ads (Christmas ad by Heathrow Airport, for instance) weave stories of regular, flesh-and-blood people with graphically generated characters really well. (Are some of them human beings wearing costumes, like the Zoozoos did?)

A look at our pick of the lot, across product groups and subjects.

Air New Zealand

Shooting Star Chase (Children's hospice)

KFC

Debanhams (retailer)

John Lewis (retailer)

Toyota

Special Recap 2016: Let's take a moment to remember a couple of memorable Christmas ads from last year's lot - Amazon and Allegro (Polish auction website). The former is an effort to battle Islamophobia and the latter helps bridge the global language divide in a roundabout manner.

Amazon

Allegro