Familiar fictional characters are proving popular for this year’s Christmas ad campaigns, and the trend seems to hold for the US too.
Where’s Wally? (known as Where’s Waldo? there), becomes a real Gen Z boy for Etsy in this ad by Orchard, which shows him on his way home for Christmas. He loves the attention he gets in crowds as people delight at spotting him, but he’s sad that nobody wants to know “the real me.” They ask “Where’s Wally?” but not “Who’s Wally?”
Cut to Wally on a dinner date with a friend, with whom he feels truly seen. She gives him a compass for Christmas inscribed with the words “I’m glad I found you” in a perfect encapsulation of Etsy’s line, “I get you.”
Heather Larimer, group creative director at Orchard, said: “In showing how gifts can make people feel seen, we thought it would be intereting to use a flat character that everyone things they know, but then turn him into a real person that a great friend truly understands and values. It was to sun to use a beloved character in a totally new way. To make him a real person, with full emotions and a vivid presence.”
It’s all done with a gentle sense of humour and it’s spot-on for the brand. Shows you don’t have to end every Christmas ad with scenes of big happy families around a table.
MAA creative scale: 8.5
