Happy Holiday Videos 2013: Agency Stunts

Welcome back. Hope everyone had a great holiday season. Now for a great start to 2014.

Taking off from my last post, here are a series of holiday action videos created by agencies around the world in their lead up to Christmas 2013. By “holiday action videos” I mean greetings built around a single visible action or interaction, not a passive message.

Holiday greetings that behave like products

The mechanism across this set is simple. Use the “holiday card” moment as permission to ship a stunt, an installation, or an interactive video that people can experience rather than merely watch.

In global agency culture, holiday cards are a low-stakes sandbox for experimentation that teams can ship fast and share widely.

The real question is whether your greeting can demonstrate something people can experience, not just a sentiment you can post.

This format is worth copying because it turns a seasonal hello into proof of craft.

Why this format keeps working

These pieces earn attention because they trade greeting-card sentiment for an observable action. Put in a coin. Click a button. Gather people in front of a webcam. One clear trigger, one visible result.

Extractable takeaway: If you want something to travel during peak-season noise, design a one-step interaction that produces a visible payoff, and make the payoff easy for someone else to describe in a sentence.

Christmas Chocolate Coin Factory by W+K London

Wieden+Kennedy London turned their Hanbury Street office window into a Christmas installation. Passers-by who inserted a 1 pound coin into Dan & Dave’s Chocolate Coin Factory activated the machine on display which then dispensed a special gold Belgian chocolate coin at the other end. All the money collected from this coin factory was donated towards building a new playground for Millfields Community School in Hackney, East London.

Disrupted Christmas by Holler

Holler, an agency from Sydney, created a live interactive installation that gave the general public a chance to disrupt the agency as it worked throughout the day. Electric Muscle Stimulation (EMS) units were hacked and hooked up to the Internet via IP cameras. Then key members of the agency were connected to the EMS units, and the Internet via a live stream. The public could then watch the agency staff online and instantaneously zap them at will with the click of a button.

For each disruption the agency donated $1 to The Factory, a local community centre with a long history of supporting socially and economically disadvantaged local residents.

The More the Merrier by Publicis Groupe

The Publicis Groupe was back again with another Maurice Lévy holiday video. This time they worked with DigitasLBi to create a video that uses your webcam to detect how many faces are watching together, and then adapts the video based on the number of viewers.

The Epic Christmas Split by Delov Digital

Delov Digital from Hungary used Chuck Norris to top Jean-Claude Van Damme’s epic Volvo split with the help of some serious digital enhancement.

A repeatable structure for next year’s greeting

  • Give the audience one trigger. A single action that anyone can explain and repeat.
  • Make the payoff visible. Something that changes on-screen or in the real world, immediately.
  • Design for retellability. If the idea cannot be summarized in one sentence, it will not spread.
  • Let craft do the selling. Use the holiday excuse to demonstrate what you can build, not just what you can say.

A few fast answers before you act

What makes “holiday action videos” different from normal holiday ads?

They are built around a visible action or interaction. The greeting is the excuse. The experience is the asset that people talk about and share.

Why do agencies use holiday cards as a playground for experimentation?

The stakes are lower and the audience is receptive. That creates room to try unusual formats, technical tricks, and interactive mechanics that would be harder to justify in a client campaign.

What is the common mechanism across the best ones?

One clear trigger and one clear payoff. Insert a coin and get a coin back. Click a button and something happens. Add more people and the video changes.

How do you choose a mechanic that people will actually try?

Pick a one-step trigger that feels effortless, then make the payoff obvious within seconds. If someone cannot explain both in one sentence, the interaction will not travel.

How do you keep it from feeling like a gimmick?

Anchor the interaction in a simple human reward. Delight, togetherness, surprise, or a small act of good. Then keep the mechanic effortless so the idea does not collapse under friction.

WestJet: Christmas Miracle

A Christmas moment built for the worst part of travel

Airports during the holiday season are generally filled with tired, disgruntled people facing delays, lost luggage, and a long list of small mishaps. WestJet uses that exact setting to deliver a Christmas miracle at the point where people least expect anything good to happen. The baggage belt.

With the help of a virtual Santa Claus, the airline asks unsuspecting passengers waiting to board flights to Calgary from Toronto and Hamilton International Airports what is on their Christmas wishlists.

Then more than 150 WestJet employees play Santa’s elves, gathering personalized presents and delivering them to the Calgary airport before the passengers land. At baggage claim, the carousel brings the surprise to life and the travelers receive their holiday miracle.

The mechanic that turns “nice idea” into a real surprise

The work is not the Santa screen. The work is the fulfillment race. Capture wishes at the departure gate, buy the gifts immediately, clear logistics fast enough to beat a flight, and make the reveal happen at a single shared moment where everyone is already looking in the same direction.

That last detail matters. Baggage claim is a forced wait with a fixed focal point. When the surprise arrives there, the reaction is collective, contagious, and easy to film without feeling staged.

In service brands, the fastest way to earn trust is to transform a routine pain point into a visibly human act of care.

Why it lands

It respects the viewer’s skepticism. People are used to holiday messages. They are not used to holiday logistics that actually deliver. The story also stays legible even if you miss the setup. You see gifts on a baggage belt, you see genuine reactions, and you instantly understand the promise being made about the brand. The real question is not whether a holiday message can feel warm, but whether the brand can operationalize that warmth in a way people instantly believe.

Extractable takeaway: If you want surprise-and-delight to travel, design the reveal around a shared focal point, then make the fulfillment real enough that people would talk about it even without a camera.

Not their first airport Christmas

This is not WestJet’s first attempt at spreading airport Christmas cheer. The year before, the airline created a Christmas-themed flash mob, complete with dancing elves, right in the middle of an airport.

A final note to close the year

And with that, a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Here is a lovely remake of “Little Drummer Boy” by Pentatonix to bring this last Ramble of the year to a close.

What service brands should steal from WestJet’s reveal

  • Pick a moment everyone already shares. The best reveal locations are places where attention naturally converges.
  • Make the operational proof the message. The buying, wrapping, and delivery speed is the real differentiator.
  • Engineer one clean narrative arc. Ask. Fulfill. Reveal. React. Do not clutter it with subplots.
  • Let the audience do the advocacy. When people feel genuinely seen, they narrate it for you.

A few fast answers before you act

What is WestJet’s “Christmas Miracle” execution?

Passengers share their Christmas wishlists with a virtual Santa at the departure airport, then those gifts appear for them at baggage claim after landing, turning a routine airport wait into a shared surprise moment.

Why does baggage claim work as the reveal location?

It is a forced wait with a single focal point. Everyone is already watching the same place, so the surprise becomes collective and instantly memorable.

What is the core mechanic behind the campaign?

Real-time fulfillment. Capturing wishes is easy. Buying, wrapping, transporting, and staging gifts before the flight lands is the proof that makes the story credible.

What makes this more shareable than a typical holiday ad?

The reactions read as unmistakably real, and the narrative is simple enough to retell in one sentence without explanation.

What is the main lesson for other brands?

Transform a predictable pain point into a visible act of care, then design the reveal so it happens in a shared moment people naturally witness together.

Plan: The Erasable Billboard for Girls’ Education

A large illustrated billboard appears in a busy city square. People donate, receive a simple eraser, and start rubbing away the artwork. As the top layer disappears, a second illustration is revealed underneath, shifting the story from girls working to girls going to school.

Plan has reported that tens of millions of girls worldwide are pushed into work instead of education, while in many less privileged countries boys are more likely to get access to schooling. To spark action, Plan and CLM BBDO created an erasable billboard with an illustration designed to be removed to reveal another illustration underneath. The billboard ran in central locations in Paris and Berlin. Passers-by were invited to donate in exchange for an eraser, then use it to change what the billboard showed.

Why the “erasable” mechanic is so strong

The mechanism does two jobs at once. It raises money, and it makes the issue understandable without explanation. The before-and-after is literal. Work disappears. School appears. The donor is not only informed. The donor performs the change. Cause-led campaigns should treat participation as the message, not a bonus layer.

Extractable takeaway: When the donor completes the transformation with their hands, the message becomes a memory and the donation feels consequential.

Definition-tightening: the eraser is not a gimmick. It is the interface, meaning the simple physical tool that gives the donor viewer control over the story. Because the act of erasing creates ownership, it makes someone more likely to donate, talk about it, and remember it.

In social-impact fundraising, participatory outdoor media can turn a small donation into a visible act of change that people feel in their hands.

The real question is whether your donation ask feels like participation or just passive sympathy.

What Plan is really buying

This is a public proof of participation. Instead of asking people to “care” in private, it makes caring visible, social, and shared. Every person who erases becomes a live endorsement that the issue matters enough to stop and act.

Steal this pattern: make giving tactile

  • Make the transformation physical. A tangible before-and-after beats a poster full of statistics.
  • Use the donation as the trigger. The action should only unlock after contribution, not before it.
  • Let participation create the content. The billboard changes because people change it.
  • Design for bystanders. Watching others erase is part of the persuasion.

A few fast answers before you act

What is the “Erasable Billboard” idea?

An illustrated billboard designed to be physically erased. Donors receive an eraser and reveal a second image underneath, shifting the story from girls working to girls going to school.

Why exchange a donation for an eraser?

Because it turns giving into an action. The eraser is a simple reward, but more importantly it is the tool that lets the donor create the transformation themselves.

What makes this more effective than a standard charity billboard?

It is participatory and observable. The public sees the billboard changing in real time, which builds social proof and makes the issue easier to grasp.

What is the main emotional lever?

Viewer control. The donor does not only learn about the problem. The donor performs a symbolic solution in front of others.

What is the biggest execution risk?

If the transformation is not instantly readable, people will not engage. The before-and-after needs to be obvious from a distance and satisfying up close.