As annual advertising in the Advent season becomes a global phenomenon, with the likes of John Lewis, Sainsbury’s, and the Spanish National Lottery releasing bigger and more emotionally-walloping spots every year, German supermarket Edeka has joined the ranks of viral seasonal success – though not everyone is sure they like what they see.
The food retailer’s commercial kicks off with an elderly man arriving home alone with his dog, with a voicemail from his daughter explaining that she and her children won’t be making it home for Christmas this year. The video then shows him eating Christmas dinner by himself for a number of years in a row.
But the family, spread out across the world, are finally brought back together in Germany by a tragic turn of events, with a twist worthy of M ‘Silent Night’ Shyamalan.
Since it debuted over the weekend, the advert has been viewed nearly 5m times, receiving a huge reaction in Germany, where people on Twitter have been using the hashtag #heimkommen, German for ‘come home’.
"I don't think an advertisement has ever moved me as much as this one. I cried like a baby," one German viewer tweeted.
But not everyone has taken the commercial’s emotional wallop to heart, with many more viewers on social media describing the ad as tasteless and manipulative.
2015’s advert is in stark contrast to Edeka’s previous Christmas campaigns, the most successful of which is Supergeil, which features a gravelly-voiced chrooner calling all of the products available in the supermarket Supergeil, a play on words that means both great and super sexy.
