Regular readers will know I talk about TV commercials here from time to time. This is one of those times!


Now this may be for UK audiences only, as I have no idea if this is showing in the US or elsewhere, but . . . have you seen the Kelloggs TV Commercial featuring the three children and Santa? It is brilliant!


OK, so it's excessively sentimental, cute, unrealistic and schmaltzy but it is so well written, directed, lit, shot, edited and above all cast and acted, it is superb. The story: Three children (Girl about 8 or 9, boy about 7 and a girl about 3-4) prepare for Santa's arrival. They leave out a bowl of cornflakes for him and hide behind the settee to wait for him. They fall asleep. Later, the youngest girl is woken by a sound. Santa is sitting in a chair eating the cornflakes. She gets up and walks shyly over to him. He whispers "shhhh". She shyly grins and whispers back "Ho ho ho". He holds out a single cornflake to her, which she eats. She goes back behind the settee and squeezes her eyes shut. Next morning, the older girl says to the younger, "Never mind, maybe you'll see him next year". She turns away and very quietly whispers to herself "Ho ho ho".


It sounds so simple - and it is! What makes it great, is the fairly slow pace of the ad, the lack of any reall "sell" (although it does so, superbly) and above all the cuteness of the young girl - who is also a very good and natural young actress.


Strangely, the Kelloggs website makes no mention of the commercial, it's not on the "Lycos Viral" pages, and I can find no reference to it through Google. I have emailed Kelloggs asking if the ad' is online anywhere, because (although it's really too late now) this would make (have made) a Christmas "Viral" that would go round the world in a couple of days. Kelloggs - you're missing out - big time! Why don't big companies (Honda excepted :-) know a good thing when they have it. New Media is about far more than just publishing a nice "electronic catalogue" as a website!


If Kelloggs reply to me, I'll let you know what they say. In the meantime, watch out for the commercial!