ALDI Australia celebrates the unbridled joy of Christmas this year in new campaign via BMF
This year ALDI Australia’s Christmas campaign via BMF is encouraging Aussies to swing big this year, because you can’t overcook Christmas.
2021 has been a tough year, again. Australians have been separated from families, again. In lockdowns, again. Waiting for the “new normal”, again. Turns out, 2021 wasn’t what we all wished for. But we are back, coming out from hibernation, just in time for Christmas.
ALDI wants Aussies to have the Christmas they deserve. A completely overcooked Christmas. From birds inside birds, to ridiculously low-priced French Champagne and award-winning hams, ALDI is proving that you simply can’t overcook Christmas this year. We know Australians deserve it, and they deserve it at the best possible prices.
ALDI is calling on Aussies to push the gravy boat out and get creative with their Christmas prep this year – from decorations to the big-day showstoppers. To the beat of “Sandstorm”, ALDI is giving Aussies inspiration to turn Christmas up to 11. Or maybe even 13.
Says Mark Richardson, director of marketing, ALDI Australia: “After yet another lengthy period of disruption to ‘normal’ life, Aussies are getting back out into the real world with gusto. Shoppers are on the lookout for unique products or great deals that can act as an antidote to the dull ‘sameness’ of lockdowns and restrictions. In the lead-up to Christmas, we want to tap into post-lockdown excitement and show what many of us are feeling: this year is the year to go a bit bigger.”
“To do this, we’ve created an emotive and upbeat Christmas campaign that is centred on the joy of letting loose. We hope that the ‘You Can’t Overcook Christmas’ call to arms, together with ALDI’s prices and phenomenal range, will energise shoppers to create the best possible Christmas for family and friends this year.”
ALDI worked with key agency partners to bring this year’s Christmas campaign message to market. The integrated campaign, targeting 5 million grocery buyers, will run across key media channels: TV, Radio, Outdoor, Digital, Social, Catalogue and POS.
Creative Agency: BMF
Creative Team: Alex Derwin, David Fraser, Dantie van der Merwe, Leila Cranswick and
Lisa Down
Design Team: Fiona McLeod and Yoon Park
Planning Team: Christina Aventi, Kinga Papp and Josef Wimberger
Account Service: Stephen McArdle, Paul Coles, Aisling Colley, Bryan Bryant-Steeds, Georgia Moulis and Francesca Di Stefano
TV Production: Jenny Lee-Archer and Esta Lau
Creative Traffic Manager: Chris Burchett
Print Production: Basir Salleh, Julie Sorrell and Lauren Swaab
Finished Artists: Adrian Jobse, Romi Carrera, Amanda Perkin and Lindsey Gregory
PR: Lu Borges and Elliott Holohan
Production Company: FINCH
Director: Benji Weinstein
Producer: Claire Thompson
Executive Producer: Loren Bradley
Cinematographer: Lachlan Milne
Editors: Jack Hutchings and Lily Davis
Music: “Sandstorm” performed by Dave Winnel
Music Supervision: Level Two Music
Sound House: Rumble Studios
Sound Designer: Tone Aston
Sound and Music EP: Michael Gie
Composer: Adam Moses
Brand OOH & POS
Production Company: The Kitchen Creative Group
Photographer: Juli Balla
Producer: Zabrina Wong
Retoucher: Adam Hayes
Retail, Content and Social
Production Company: Bantam Productions
Head of Content Creative: Nico Engelbrecht
Content Producer: Holly Whiteley
Photographer: Gavin Johns
Producer: Debra Maloney
Retouchers: Rhiannon Jansma and Jenni Rohwer
Media: Zenith
Client Partner: Ana Bagevski
Head of Strategy and Planning: Sarah Heitkamp
Strategy and Planning Director: Ryan Varley
Account Director: Rachel Lawton
Digital Director: Adam Cartwright
Scarlett Templeman
Executive Manager – Communications
ALDI Stores (A Limited Partnership)
Corporate Buying AUS
88 Comments
Unreal
ALDI continues to dominate in distinctive branding.
Poor production quality. No idea. Very average, particularly for ALDI.
I’d shelve this. On the top shelf.
I wanna see more of the dancing prawn!
BMF is encouraging Aussies to swing big this year,
Australians have been separated from families, again.
ALDI wants Aussies to have the Christmas they deserve.
We know Australians deserve it,
ALDI is calling on Aussies to push the gravy boat out
ALDI is giving Aussies inspiration to turn Christmas up to 11.
Aussies are getting back out into the real world
Aussie Bingo, I assume from this that you wrote the brief.
In which case the creatives have let you down.
Probably the best Christmas spot I’ve ever seen
This is cooked. In a good way.
Lacks charm and craft.
One well placed rivet short of being ad of the year.
Superb. The fog horn was the cherry on top. The people writing hating comments don’t have a soul. Because this is sublime.
I wanted it to better because of their heritage of great Christmas films,but it’s just not in the same league as past work.The big difference and disappointment for me is that they have always had an intriguing and original story line.
Let’s be honest,this is strategically heavy handed and little more than another Christmas montage.
It certainly doesn’t live up to good or different.
God that track is good!
Are you sure you know what craft is? Cos this has buckets of it
I don’t think you know what craft is. This is amateur level. A montage doesn’t tell the story of how boring goes to overly cooked. Slow motion doesn’t tell the story of overly cooked either and slow motion isn’t craft, it’s frame speed dialled in on almost any camera. The effects are basic and there’s no real pay off. Definitely undercooked, imagine how cooked this could have got considering Aldi’s legacy? This could have been great, but seems very much phoned in, literally. Missed opportunity but yes still better than the other xmas campaigns this year, not much competition though.
Aldi wins xmas over coles and woolies again, by a big big margin.
Poor for ALDI. Lacks the charm their work has been known for. Sad people who look confused by Christmas start dancing? It will stand out from other Christmas ads but not for the right reasons.
Fantastic
I can’t stop watching this.
Coles and Woloies are a very low benchmark to measure yourself against.
I’m not sure but I’ve done all these in the previous years. Where is the new excitement exactly? For no reason these people started to act crazy, I mean, why? because you decided not to follow the recipe?
Makes me want to Christmas right now!
Get this in my dance-hole! Love it. Sticky-tape-man had me laughing and Sandstorm had me up and dancing.
Stands out from the sea of naff Christmas love-ins. Top work BMF and Benji! Jenny and Esta producing up a rave. xo
I remember the first time I took googs to his christmas campaign
‘You can’t overcook Christmas’ is such a good line.
Can you please explain this to me as I genuinely don’t get it
Nuff said
Lol, sorry bud but no. This is awesome.
meant to symbolise christ on the cross?
Great song (even if it was a weird advertising cover version of it)… But the visuals looked kinda like stock-footage if you took away the iconic track
Flaming grandma hands or whatever it was at the end had the right idea but the rest felt like a really standard backyard script.
OMFG
Normally a Christmas grinch, but love this. Dave Winnel please release this cover, da-Rude not to.
Thank you Jesus for restoring my faith in advertising. After watching whatever the Coles and Woolies tripe was, I wasn’t sure I’d ever see the light again.
I’m so happy I don’t work for you.
I want to work for BMF
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBt8v97j8HE
Looks a bit stock footage. Not sure why you’d get someone to direct from abroad when you have so much great talent here on the ground to craft the frames in person.
The friends and family come out to support bad work.
Please tell me the difference between this spot and the K-mart christmas ad?
Other than the fact that these guys used a song that was sort of funny 6 years ago..
I think this is awesome and I don’t even work for BMF.
To all the Campaign Brief Keyboard Warriors (no doubt frustrated at their ‘two-bob’ agencies with zero interesting briefs and budgets)… get a grip.
Where’s your good work?
Sweet grandma on the cross, its a Christmas ad for a budget grocery chain. Have a mince pie and get over yourself.
I think its a whole load of fun and thank fuck its not all full of sentimental pretend like the others.
Good work BMF
LS
OMG, people praising this are easily pleased.
It’s not very good.
Try to imagine it as a script. Strip back any production flourishes, and it’s very thin on idea.
The line’s OK but what precedes it just isn’t charming, entertaining or engaging and it meanders, no staggers to its crescendo.
Cue the usual Hate Mail about me being out of touch and over the hill.
Maybe because you’ve had 60 christmases they are all blur together now. That’s okay.
I’m not from BMF but I think this is brilliant. The simple idea to me is that people try to overcook christmas, but you don’t need to. It doesn’t matter because christmas will always be good either way because it’s bloody christmas. So just relax and have fun.
And I thought the execution was brilliant.
That’s why you’re an old CD guy.
Next time, ALDI should make an ad about teaching you how to be fun again. Have a shitty Christmas, you deserve it.
Try to imagine yourself f@#king yourself in script form
Let’s not kid ourselves,itv has not lifted the bar on theAldi Christmas work.
It has lowered the bar considerably.But that happens to lots of agencies and campaigns.BMF will bounce back.
What precedes the line is actually engaging AF, sir.
Just foregoing the usual family-focused clichés already makes this a bold idea, I reckon.
And I could give you 100 examples of groundbreaking work that would have looked “thin” as a script. I think you could too.
Coles does aldi.
Lame.
if you’re arguing over the merits of this. Perhaps against Woolies, Coles, Kmart etc this is decent, but the Tesco work shows you what a fun Christmas ad can be. There’s a good insight and idea behind the ALDI work, and the OOH works nicely, but the film execution could’ve been so much more.
You’re probably just grumpy that no one ever discusses your work on this blog. Because your work probably looks like it came from an old CD guy.
Old or young, if you don’t actually know what getting overly cooked is then you just can’t replicate it in an ad.
Old CD guy prob got way more cooked than you kids do, because he is from that fucked up past world of money, creativity and drugs in ads at a level you new kids have no concept of and aren’t educated enough for. Sorry, tik tok flash montage ket dreams to hot tracks for clients that don’t actually want tv ads, really doesn’t do it unless you’re there in person.
Concept is concept, idea is idea, story is story, craft is craft. Compare this to the last 30 years of ads or even the last 5 years and this really, really doesn’t cut it.
I don’t think that’s the idea at all. Surely it’s the opposite? You can’t go too big, the more the merrier etc
Ragers, you’ve forgotten who this ad is for. It’s not for you, it’s for the punters.
Will they notice it more than others in the category? Yes.
Does it tell them something good about the brand? Yes.
Just let the music take you
and be glad some brands are still having fun out there
omg you’re old. go swallow a glow stick
http://browncardigan.com/post/57010
Plenty of vested interests obviously commenting above.
The brand line is good sure. But it simply doesn’t make sense because the visuals are so damn cheap/boring and need I say – under-cooked.
The original song, yes funny and has been used for comedy many times.
Anyone here saying this is ‘fun’ must still be stuck in self-imposed lockdown. Really? It feels like silly online content not a major brand’s flagship christmas campaign. Cmon people.
Wish I’d made it. Great line. Great track. Great, different.
OOONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ
Or maybe you’re inexperienced and stupid?
Remember fun – You have no idea. @remember fun nailed it, you can’t overcook Xmas ie: go big, go nuts, go mental…Merry the hell out of it!! “You can’t overcook Christmas!” Get it????? Thankfully you’re not producing ideas, or selling them on my watch.
Just to be clear… you’re talking about the Tesco ad that was posted today?
shouldn’t music credits be:
Remake Produced by David Wennel.
Composed/written by Ville Virtanen (Darude??). He should probably be credited.
One of the main reasons i love this is cos it’s fresh for Aldi but still in their tone.
That shows flex.
It’s brave and memorable.
Congrats to BMF – again.
This makes me like Aldi more than their competitors I reckon. Cause Xmas is weird and they know it and don’t pretend it’s not. I like that.
Amusing when i see a lot of defence on these posts. To me it always says that the creatives and agency also know it’s bad too and are trying to make it look good through comments.
Remote directing doesn’t work so well. That’s the only logical excuse for this.
Creatives not realising how good this could be.
It’s at possibly ok level right now. Global awards could flow if well directed.
“It feels like silly online content. Not a major brands flagship Christmas campaign” isn’t that a good thing?
I love this
What a fresh and great way of thinking. The creative team is from another planet! Well done guys!
This definitely feels like it was better on paper. Very poorly executed.
This comment section is a bunch of vacuous advertising people wanking into the same sock, screaming “oh the craft!”. It doesn’t give customers any reason to choose Aldi over Coles, Woolies or IGA. The 60s has very close to no branding. Weird for the sake of weird. Does it drive additional sales in a critical retail period? Unlikely. It’s not Coles shit but it’s by no means ‘great’.
Like the intent. Trying to make something different – but it’s a garbled mess in the end.
This is trying way too hard.
It lacks Christmas charm and the rave reference will be lost on the 99 percent who haven’t enjoyed a white dove.
Good ad or shit ad, at this point does it matter? 70 odd comments of mostly self-important ad wankers competing to be the ‘smartest’ in the room by who can cut down their peers the hardest. I wonder, if we couldn’t hide behind a pseudonym, would half the comments on here even be published? Aldi, Coles, Woolies, Kmart, doesn’t matter what they put out there, nothing will ever be good enough for the anonymous critics who tear down others for to make themselves feel less inadequate in this pompous industry. Makes you wonder how any of us could possibly win any awards at all with work this terrible, right? Take a good look at yourselves ladies and gents, if this vitriol is what our industry has to offer each other, why bother at all?
Whist i generally agree with this sentiment, there are a few holes in your theory.
1. ‘Good or shit ad, at this point does it matter?’ Yes it does matter. Good work does often attract mostly good comments. And it seems some people don’t care if work is good or bad, they want a pat on the back regardless.
2. If commenting wasn’t anonymous then there would be no negative or truthful criticism because people would lose jobs.
3. Aldi often do make great ads. This one not.
4. Awards are judged against other work, if all the work is shit, yes someone still wins the award for the best shit relative to other shit. We all know that awards are often half political in nature too.
5. Why bother indeed, especially if we’re only making shit and being told to like it, or told that it’s good.
It would be nice to see constructive criticism here, both positive and negative.
Just want to get these comments into the triple figures. Slow day
A lot of deep analysis in these comments that something that’s intended as a bit of fun.
It’ll probably make a few people laugh, and that’s a good thing.
From now on I’m only here for the obituaries, not the bitcheries.
People think the fun could be more fun. The few people laughing could be a few more people laughing. Nothing wrong with analysis on how things can be better. Complacency is the devil.
Just like all the other nonsense no one will remember this in a month!
Cracking ad. Love a bit of pinger raves mixed with family fun on a Christmas Day!!
As someone who worked on one successful Aldi Christmas spot, I know it’s a bloody tough slog. Not sure how it’s done now, but we started scripting in April. This had me at Darude. Don’t overthink Christmas is a great premise, true to the brand for regular folks and a great excuse for people to just let it go a bit. The only disappointing part for me was, when thinking about it, almost everyone up to the age of 50-60 years old were off their tits on eckies dancing to this song a coupl’a decades ago. Well done BMF. It shits all over other Christmas campaigns in Australia at the moment and great people were a part of this. And remember to hug the haters. They’ll always remind you why different is good.
Very enjoyable! Everyone loves a little crazy.
Nice one peeps.
‘iTs jUsT a bIT oF fUn’
So is a 60 sec video of a dog on a skateboard.
People used to have slightly higher standards of what was suffice to be broadcasted as a holiday campaign on television. This is a series of dirt-cheap cast talent faces in a vignette dancing in coloured flashing lights.
Good idea that could have been properly unhinged as a point of different to other conservative Christmas ads. Execution abysmal.
…to the agency. Production should be ashamed.
I dunno, it put a smile on my dial and I’ll happily watch it every time it comes on. The chicken being sexually manhandled might get a strongly worded email from Animals Australia. I hope my Christmas Day is this much fun.
Looks like they spent 5 cents on it. Production value zero.
Agency must be ropable
wanna comment just to push this thread up to 85 comments.
Advertising perfection, beat dropping on fisting the bird is just classic. Well played Aldi. 5 stars.