The Christmas advert is big business with companies regularly spending hundreds of thousands on production and air time. John Lewis Christmas Advert is perhaps the most anticipated each year and with the massive budgets and with marketing teams out of the reach of small businesses, one might think that there’s just no point trying to compete.
Not so this year, where a tiny company called Hafod Hardware have produced an advert costing just £100 to rival even the biggest of retailers. Sure they might only have received a tenth of the online views of John Lewis, but that’s still a mighty 1.3 million people who have viewed Hafod Hardware’s Christmas advert compared to 9.2 million that have viewed the John Lewis Christmas advert.
If you’ve not seen the Hafod Hardware Christmas advert it’s below and is a charming depiction of two year old Arthur waking, having breakfast, going to work, serving customers, cleaning the shop and generally running the business. At the end of the day Arthur locks up and as he picks up his Christmas tree to take home he turns into his Dad, Tom, with the message that we can all be a kid and enjoy this magical time of year. The underlying message is also to support your small independent retailer.
The Hafod Hardware Christmas advert cost about £100 to film and produce and that’s a budget that just about every small business could stretch to. Sometimes it’s not about the money… it’s about having an idea and carrying through on it.
8 Responses
It’s not hard to see how those big companies can blow hundreds of thousands of pounds on tv ads. Just watch “Inside the Supermarket” on BBC and you will see how a bunch of highly paid people spend their days in meetings doing nothing, lol. It quickly adds up!
What a great advert… So worthy of a share.
Small businesses are the life blood of the country.
Well done to them, think my Granddaughters have a got a job for next Christmas.
And how much did they pay Alphaville to use their song ?
I am looking forward to seeing what happens to this father and son over the years.
It will be like watching your own family grow.
Beautiful, heart warming ?
I know that shop, used to deliver to it years ago when I was a van driver in Aberystwyth.
Fair play to them, make the million £ adverts look stupid.