Brand Story We Love: WestJet Christmas Miracle

Brand Story We Love: WestJet Christmas Miracle

WestJet has scored a big hit with their Christmas video, WestJet Christmas Miracle: real-time giving, which has racked up more than 25 million views in its first week alone.

It’s fun, its timely, and it’s a brand story we love.

Why we love it:

• It’s true to the WestJet brand, which is more fun and customer-centric than your average airline
• It shows us their values, personality and culture in action rather telling us about them
• It demonstrates their logistics capabilities in a way that a list of facts could never do
• The production values are extremely high
• It’s compelling, even if Santa has never been to your house
• It’s great emotional storytelling, sharing a feeling that sweeps us up along with it
  • great use of music
  • well structured
  • beautifully shot and edited
  • great pacing
  • leaves in little human moments that make it more special
  • good use of narration and text
  • has a charming out-take video that gives you a little more insight into the delightful Santa and some of the behind the scenes fast paced activity
• It captures the magic we associate with the season and the belief in Santa
• Makes you feel for a moment that something just as magical could happen to you
• It makes you feel so good, you want to share it with the people you love

Any down side?

• Detractors in the YouTube comments have noted that all of the gift recipients are white, though to be fair, West Jet had no control over who would be on the flights the day the shoot was set
• A few commenters suggested including some kind of donation to those less fortunate than people who can afford flights would have made the video seem less commercial and consumeristic

The WestJet Christmas Miracle is one of those rare birds, an ad that doesn’t feel like an ad.

And it’s caught more attention than a Lufthansa campaign, which legally required Swedes to change their name in order to enter a contest for a new life in Germany. Such tough love from the German brand makes happy-go-lucky, we’re-just-here-to-constantly-surprise-you-in-delightful-ways-with-a-better-travel-experience-WestJet look even better.

It’s a good win for the employee-owned brand that has worked hard to stay true to its values.

We were delighted to also see this little side video project with WestJet’s Blue Santa in Haiti helping our friends at Live Different. No, this video can’t hold a candle to the WestJet video. But the work can. And it’s nice to see WestJet helping Live Different by lending out their oh-so-hot Santa over the holiday season.

Have a brand story you love? Send it our way…