Christmas is a funny time of year. On the one hand, it’s a time for carol singing, mince pies and getting presents: all the good stuff.
On the other, when family and friends descend over the festive season, it can also be somewhat of a trial. Who wants to pretend that Uncle Ted is good company, or that they actually like the trifle that one cousin insists on bringing every year?
Well, Argos have taken that idea and run with it in this, their new Christmas advert.
Our mild-mannered heroes (whom we meet at the start of the action, putting out a small bowl of crisps) are a thirty-something straight couple, looking forward to nothing more than a quiet Christmas, with maybe a very few guests. But a horde of truly epic proportions is on its way: the festive gathering of nightmares.
There are aunts and uncles; women in glittery dresses spraying champagne everywhere; kids wielding foam guns. There’s even (god forbid) a trifle advancing, to the horror of the woman, who appears to hate the idea of whipped cream (she hasn’t lived). And there are even a few relatives who seem to be bringing suitcases along – the implication being, they’re here to stay.
As the glasses on the table begin to shake, the pair look at each other in horror. Argos’ message this year is simple: “They’re coming. Be ready.”
And so our female protagonist gets the Argos app up with a flick of her phone – surely it will have everything they need to cater to the approaching masses, including, as her partner says, “a bigger bowl”. Though quite how big a bowl needs to be to feed what looks like hundreds of people is anybody’s guess.
It’s a fun advert, even more so for how it plays into the complicated family-and-friends element of the Christmas season. Sometimes, hosting drinks (or indeed, hosting family) does feel like preparing for a rowdy army, and the chaos unfold on-screen is likely to elicit a number of guilty sniggers. Plus, the sheer number of festive jumpers on display rewards a rewatch.
It’s all very light-hearted, and there’s not a lot of depth, but does there need to be? It makes a convincing argument for doing the Christmas prep at Argos, that’s for sure. Fear is a powerful motivator - thank goodness my tiny London flat is too small to host an army.
