Work of the Week- Hedgehog Christmas

I opened this video as I scrolled through my Facebook timeline, not expecting to see anything out of the ordinary. 1 minute and 37 seconds later I found myself sobbing quietly on my way to class. This little story was so touching and sweet, and it went completely viral across different platforms on the internet. Unfortunately it was posted so many times, it's difficult to quantify.

Interestingly enough, this adorable short has nothing to do with Animal Wellfare, Packing Peanuts, or even buying someone a gift at Christmas time, it was an advertisement from Erste Bank, a European Bank and Sparkasse a European Financial Institution.

The insight Erste must have had before creating this spot, was that consumers don't always want advertising to look like an ad. Consumers are looking for emotional connections and to listen to great storytelling.

So the objective of their ad this Christmas was instead of promoting banking, to tell a heartfelt story. To get their consumers to #believeinlove #believeinchristmas and #believeinyourself. The one part that I feel this ad could improve on would be a cleverer call to action at the end. There could have easily been a way to tie banking into the story more directly with a call to action, instead of these emotional but seemingly meaningless hashtags.

While this seems to have nothing at all to do with banking, I was incredibly moved by the little film and NEEDED to know what it was about. And here I am talking about these European Banks that I would have never known about. It's definitely not a lower funnel kind of spot, but it's a great awareness play. And hopefully from the success of this ad Erste is able to get some more interest and eventual lower funnel conversions.