RedBalloon ‘Break with tradition’

CHRISTMAS 2018

Creative Strategy, Creative Direction, Concept Development & Creative Leadership

CREATIVE BRIEF Develop a Christmas campaign that encourages customers to give experiences over physical gifts, while driving standout during the highly competitive festive retail period.

CREATIVE STRATEGY Developed the campaign concept “Break With Tradition”, challenging conventional Christmas gifting behaviours through humour and unexpected storytelling. To cut through the sea of sentimental holiday advertising, the campaign leaned into playful, relatable scenarios that positioned experiences as more meaningful, memorable, and exciting than traditional gifts.

CREATIVE DIRECTION This bold, humour-led campaign centred around a recurring family cast used consistently across all touchpoints to drive recognition and cut-through. The creative exaggerated the contrast between traditional gifts and RedBalloon experiences, positioning “Jeff” — the family member gifting experiences instead of physical presents — as the aspirational behaviour the audience was encouraged to emulate. “Be like Jeff” messaging unified video, OOH, radio, and digital executions throughout the campaign.

RESULTS
• Achieved 1M+ video views, surpassing the previous campaign record of 700K
• Voted “Most Effective Australian Christmas Ad of 2018” by Cubery
• Winner of Mumbrella’s Best Christmas Campaign Video 2018 (consumer-voted), recognised for its ability to captivate audiences emotionally, create meaningful brand connection, and influence consumer behaviour through humour-led storytelling, outperforming major retailers including Woolworths, Coles, ALDI, Myer, and David Jones
• Featured in AdNews’ round-up of “The Festive Best Christmas Ads from Around the World”

RedBalloon “Break with Tradition” Christmas Ad 2018

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