Situation

Only 4% of ads globally include women aged 65 or older. So, for Amazons annual global holiday brand film, we sought to tell a universal story that would breakthrough with global customers (including emerging markets in new countries) by putting a spotlight on this extremely underrepresented group. And to ensure nothing was lost in translation, we sought to do this without dialogue in favor of music and performance to create an emotional story arc that transcends languages.

Brief

Show how Amazon is there to help our customers to share holiday joy with others, by highlighting how the thought matters just as much as the gift.

Objectives

Create a global holiday brand film that wins over the hearts and minds of customers with a customer-centric story that communicates Amazon’s position in the market as an enabler of holiday joy.

"Joy Ride” tells a universal story of three life-long friends who recapture the joy of their youth, proving it's never too late to make new memories with new friends. All thanks to an unexpected gift from Amazon. Because this was Amazon's global holiday brand film, the story not only needed to connect with customers across markets (including emerging markets), it needed to convey who Amazon is (an enabler of holiday joy) just as much as what we do. To overcome language barriers, we crafted the story without dialogue in favor of authentic performances and music to deliver an emotional arc that would resonate with all customers. To amplify the brand message, we scored the story with an original instrumental arrangement of the iconic Beatles track 'In My Life' – An ode to lasting friendships, and one of the most well-loved songs by on the of the most globally recognized artists.

“Joy Ride” is the brand centerpiece of Amazon’s global “Joy is shared” campaign and runs across Broadcast TV, Cinema, Streaming Video, Online Video, and Social. This year, we wanted to show how Amazon enables our customers to share holiday joy with others, by highlighting how the thought matters just as much as the gift. To ensure nothing was lost in translation across countries, we intentionally crafted the spot without any dialogue. Instead, we relied on grounded, non-verbal performances from underrepresented characters (just 4% of global ads feature women over 65), art direction cues to help define the characters over time and music to transcend languages while amplifying memorability and emotional resonance. Thus, we scored the film with an original arrangement of In My Life by The Beatles – an ode to lasting friendships from one of the most globally recognized artists.

Only 4% of global ads feature women over 65. So, for Amazon’s annual global holiday brand film, we sought to tell a universal story that would breakthrough with global customers (including emerging markets in new countries) by putting a spotlight on this extremely underrepresented group. The role of our female leads rejects the typical advertising/pop-culture stereotypes of depicting “old people” as feeble, or using their age and abilities as comedic punchline. Instead, we chose portray them as empowered, daring and fun.

“Joy Ride” helped Amazon achieve it's highest Q4 Holiday sales of all time with $170 Billion in sales (a 14% increase from the previous year). It was also named World’s Most Effective Ads by System 1, earning over 1 Billion earned impressions, and $30 Million in earned media spend.

Earned Media and Over 1 Billion Earned Impressions.