Saatchi & Saatchi New York launched a “Holiday Hypnosis” spot for Walmart, featuring professional hypnotist Chris Jones.
The spot opens with the fairly obvious insight that while Christmas is an unending source of joy for children everywhere, for adults it’s mostly a major source of stress and anxiety. A handful of such adults are interviewed, who talk about how stressful the holidays are now before fondly recalling childhood memories. Then Jones arrives on the scene and supposedly hypnotizes them into reliving their favorite Christmas moments while a film crew captures the results.
When the footage is played back, the participants laugh and cry at footage of them happily looking out at falling snow, ripping open presents, tearing into a drum kit, riding a bike around the living room and otherwise acting like kids again. The spot concludes with the message, “Everyone should feel like a kid at Christmas,” and “Share a happy, healthy holiday.”
While that may be a nice sentiment, it’s a far reach to connect it to the brand. It remains to be seen if Jones is an accomplished enough hypnotist to convince the participants that shopping at Walmart is anything other than a stressful clustercuss. But hey, maybe that is the connection.
Credits:
Client: Walmart
Agency – Saatchi & Saatchi New York
Javier Campopiano – Chief Creative Officer
Mike Pierantozzi – Executive Creative Director
Cristian Costa – Art Director
Tomás Almuna – Copywriter
Justin Roth – Creative Director
Adam Kline – Creative Director
Derek Peet – Junior Copywriter
Thanh Ly – Junior Art Director
John Doris – Head of Film
Abe Romano – Producer
Matty Yu – Producer
Caitlin Reynolds – Senior Account Director
Kate Owens – Digital Director
Sarah Mannion – Account Director
Preeya Vyas – Managing Director, Digital
Production Company: Hey Wonderful
Director: Peking (Nat Livingston Johnson and Gregory Mitnick)
Founder/Managing Director: Michael Di Girolamo
Executive Producer: Sarah McMurray
Line Producer: Scott Lane
DP: Adam McDaid
Edit: Rock Paper Scissors
Editor: Noah Benezra
Exective Producer: Eve Kornblum
Producer: Julianne Cort
Color: Company 3
Colorist : Jaime O’Bradovich
Music: Future Perfect Music
Mix: Sound Lounge
Mixer: Rob Sayers