Apple | Someday At Christmas | 2015
Dim the lights and settle in tonight / Apple "Someday At Christmas"
90 seconds just isn't enough. Honestly, I wish I could watch and listen to this for three hours straight. At this point, it's gone beyond what you'd normally call a commercial.
The idea
It starts with Stevie Wonder using VoiceOver on a Mac to mix a track in GarageBand, then moves into him singing together with Andra Day while a family plays games and does crafts, and by the end the kids join in the singing too. "Someday at Christmas" is Wonder's own song from 1967, a song that stands up to war, poverty, inequality, and hunger. Apple's ads usually focus on a specific product, but this holiday ad almost entirely avoids mentioning any product, focusing instead on music and family time.
Afterthought
The line "dim the lights and settle in tonight" really stays with you. I feel exactly the same way. There's a gentleness in how Apple doesn't push its products front and center, choosing instead to close with the simple sign-off "Love, Apple" — and it fits perfectly with the spirit of the song. Maybe this is what it means for an ad to stick with you even when it tells you so little.
