Shopping Mall Claims Holidays Are NOT About Spending Money

  • 1 min read
CltCCN_YltdCardCarol72_1.jpg

Last night during Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!, Charlie complained about the flagrant commercialization of Christmas. If creatives ever felt the way he did, they’re probably well over it out of professional necessity. I know I am, and I just blog here.

Adding to our jaded perspective of how things operate in Ad Land’s warped universe, Cherry Creek North — a high-end shopping mall, mind you — worked with CULTIVATOR ADVERTISING & DESIGN/Denver to launch The Yuletide Project. Its goal is to remind holiday shoppers that the holidays are about more than frequent wallet molestation.

Each (charming! adorable! candy-striped!) Yuletide Project print/banner ad suggests ways to lift spirits without spending any dosh. Variants:

o “Invite a crowd of people to catch snowflakes on their tongues.” Hey, that happened on Charlie Brown last night, too. Sally (I think?) was all, “Needs sugar.”
o “Write a holiday greeting on a snow covered car window.” Aww. That’d make a really cute TV spot.
o “Stick a holiday bow on someone’s back.” You mean like a human Lexus?
o “Change your ringtone to your favorite holiday tune.”

The pieces end, somewhat antithetically, with “Find the reason for the season at Cherry Creek North.” Wait — could that “reason for the season” be more stuff in exchange for my money? They’re sure as hell not airing a free nativity play.

Picture of Steve Hall

Steve Hall

RECENT ARTICLES
Strange

Dad Uses Hot Daughter to Sell Car on eBay
Industry Events

Internet Week Summarized Infographic-Style
Industry Events

Charlotte Gets Social With SocialFresh
Opinion

Why Advertising Will Never Portray Reality
Cause

iPad Drinkspirated, Games Socialized, Honda Gets Naughty
Celebrity

Streakers Pimp Briefs, Politician Gets Clean, Naomi Campbell Sexes Up

Load more

TRENDING AROUND THE WEB

8 things people who give thoughtful gifts pay attention to all year

8 things people who give thoughtful gifts pay attention to all year

Hack Spirit
Greif and Gleason’s 1980 research on how children learn politeness routines found that young children almost never say “please” or “thank you” spontaneously, they say it because a parent prompts them with “what do you say?” dozens of times a week, meaning the reflex adults later display without thinking twice was built through years of someone else’s prompting long before it became automatic.

Greif and Gleason’s 1980 research on how children learn politeness routines found that young children almost never say “please” or “thank you” spontaneously, they say it because a parent prompts them with “what do you say?” dozens of times a week, meaning the reflex adults later display without thinking twice was built through years of someone else’s prompting long before it became automatic.

Global English Editing
8 signs your in-laws see you as their own, not just someone their child married

8 signs your in-laws see you as their own, not just someone their child married

Hack Spirit
Many adult children remember watching a father work sixty-hour weeks for decades so the family could have what he never did, then watched him die in his sixties without ever prioritizing his own happiness, and now see that same pattern quietly repeating in their own lives, under a different name.

Many adult children remember watching a father work sixty-hour weeks for decades so the family could have what he never did, then watched him die in his sixties without ever prioritizing his own happiness, and now see that same pattern quietly repeating in their own lives, under a different name.

Global English Editing
Harvard researchers had 166 undergraduates rate their own pets on qualities like thoughtful, considerate and sympathetic, and the students who felt most chronically disconnected from other people scored their pets meaningfully higher on exactly those three traits, and no others.

Harvard researchers had 166 undergraduates rate their own pets on qualities like thoughtful, considerate and sympathetic, and the students who felt most chronically disconnected from other people scored their pets meaningfully higher on exactly those three traits, and no others.

Global English Editing
University of Arizona researchers wired 79 people with a recorder sampling conversations every 12.5 minutes for four days and found the happiest had twice as many substantive conversations and a third as much small talk as the unhappiest, suggesting the discomfort was never a social deficit.

University of Arizona researchers wired 79 people with a recorder sampling conversations every 12.5 minutes for four days and found the happiest had twice as many substantive conversations and a third as much small talk as the unhappiest, suggesting the discomfort was never a social deficit.

Global English Editing
Load more