The Best Holiday Ads of 2024

Austrian financial services company Erste Group tells the origin story of Christmas carol “Silent Night.” Rich with historic detail, the film takes viewers back to the Austrian village of Oberndorf in the winter of 1818, where a young man sees his neighbors struggling with poverty and hunger and finds a way to bring them warmth and hope. The man turns out to be Joseph Mohr, who with his friend, music teacher Franz Xaver Gruber, composes a song on Christmas Eve. Agency Jung von Matt created the ad. 

Amazon

Funny reviews on Amazon have developed a cult following of sorts, and even spawned their own community on Reddit, so the ecommerce giant decided to hop on the bandwagon, with help from a two-time Academy Award-nominated actor.

Adam Driver is narrating some of Amazon’s “funniest and most iconic” five-star product reviews for the company’s “5-Star Theatre” campaign in the U.S., leading up to Black Friday. The actor gives actual reviews for products including a banana slicer, Elf on the Shelf, and a massage gun “a voice worthy of the customers who wrote them,” lending his dramatic chops to the spots, which were produced in the format of a one-man show.

Philips Norelco

Actor and self-proclaimed “facial hair enthusiast” Adam Scott is back with another ad for Philips Norelco, this time paying homage to “the absolute king of beards—my man Santa Claus.”

But in the spirit of inclusion, Scott uses the hero 30-second video to also shout out “the rest of us, no matter what level of beard you’re able to pull off or not pull off” and Norelco for “being there for our faces, now and forever.” 

Scott kicked off his relationship with Norelco earlier this year, touting the OneBlade electric shaver in the awkwardly endearing manner he’s become famous for and chatting with ADWEEK about the brand alliance. The parent company extended its celebrity streak with a recent Sonicare campaign starring actor-comedian-author Kate McKinnon.

The new holiday-centric Norelco spot comes from FleishmanHillard, director Jesse Peretz and production company Arts & Sciences. –T.L. Stanley