Christmas Throwback: BBC Christmas 2017

Anyone feeling that Christmas spirit yet? Now we have probably all been admiring this year’s Christmas adverts as we know the Christmas competition for the best ad is always high. Before I start looking at this year’s pick of adverts I thought I would have a little #throwbackthursday to one I loved last year.

Okay, so this isn’t an advert it’s 2017’s BBC Christmas short and it sends a great message to parents and children. The lesson to parents I think is the most obvious in this video reminding them that Christmas is a time for family so make sure you make time for yours.

Now I know a lot of parents may think ‘easier said than done’ as they still need to work and provide for their family. That’s why I think this video is great with its message to children, which may not have been intended but just shows, even if it seems like a parent is always busy and doesn’t have time they are still paying attention. They are always there when it counts.

Admit it, this short got you a little emotional, right? As always the BBC has aimed to keep its audience as wide as possible by allowing people the opportunity to either relate to the young girl as a child or the dad as that busy parent trying to juggle everything. At the age of 22 I’m not exactly doing school talent shows but with no children I relate to the young girl but understand the dad’s character in this and that’s the beauty of this with people of all ages having a different perspective.

As was the case with McVities Sweeter Together adverts, the fact this video is an animation helps to reach that family audience and allows the video to show us the emotion of the characters in the way that a live action video wouldn’t be able to do. Take the final scene for example: we see the young girl with a bad case of stage fright which prevents her from even starting her dance, which of course her caring dad notices. As we see the young girl getting into her dance and remembering her moves, rather than cutting between the dad and the young girl, we see the dad and daughter together just the two of them dancing surrounded by lights.

This could have also been done as a live action but it wouldn’t have been as smooth and the flow to the video would have been lost. With animation this section is added so seamlessly that you don’t really take it into account until you really look into the video, as you are just engrossed in this beautiful moment between the characters. With a little comic relief added as we see the dad gesturing to the fact he is too out of shape to do the flip his daughter does we have a little chuckle at the relatableness of a parent trying to keep up with their child.

This is all tied together with the end tagline, “Christmas Together” just to reiterate what the video has been telling us all along.

I hope you have enjoyed my brief look into 2017’s BBC Christmas short. As always I would love to see your comments below and I’m always up for a discussion on any of my blog topics if you want to drop me a message via LinkedIn or Instagram.