Marketers turn up 'toons in holiday ads
— -- Playful polar bears. Grouchy gingerbread men. Generous penguins. An under-the-weather Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. These are just a few of the animated characters appearing in holiday TV ads.
The cartoon parade comes as companies try to foster good will — and sales — in the key holiday retail season. Consumers are expected to shell out $474.5 billion in November and December, says the National Retail Federation.
Some of the animated ads are touchy-feely sweet: Penguins give hot coffee to a cold window washer in a Starbucks' TV spot.
Others have edge: A gingerbread man is annoyed by humans who eat his home in a commercial for AT&T's prepaid GoPhone.
But they all have the same mission: to stand out from the glut of holiday promotions.
Rival Alltel Wireless had similar thinking. It recreated its live-action TV commercial stars — handsome Alltel spokesman "Chad" and nerdy sales guys representing its wireless rivals — as cartoon caricatures using stop-motion animation. In one ad, Santa consults with Chad on gift ideas.
The Alltel ad's style creates an "emotional connection" for viewers who recall stop-motion holiday classics such as 1964's Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, says Mark Simon, executive creative director at Alltel agency Campbell-Ewald.
Alltel's ads may be fun, but making them certainly isn't child's play. The process involves frame-by-frame manipulation of figures made of clay or other flexible material.
While a live-action commercial can be done in as few as two weeks, Alltel's holiday effort took seven weeks.
"The process is pretty laborious," says Simon. "Even with technological advances, it's essentially the same process that (was used) for Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."
Some themes from marketers tapping into animation for their holiday ads:
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