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In recent years, creating Christmas commercials has become a competition for the most appealing, or rather controversial, advertisement.

Although it is still a bit early to declare a winner, for now the British drugstore chain Boots is generating the most commotion, including trending hashtags (#BoycottBoots), but it is rather tame this year. Apart from Coca-Cola of course, but that’s about the use of AI, not diversity – so no Marketing the Rainbow.

In the recent past, things have been different. Two examples.

“She, a story by J&B” (2022)

Diageo’s whisky brand J&B caused quite a stir in Spain. In ’22 they told the touching story of a grandfather preparing for the family dinner. First, take a look:

This video has gone viral: almost 300,000 views on my channel alone (which puts them in second place there), with a record 2,500 comments. Many of these comments are about pedophilia, satan, grooming and other misconceptions. Terms like virtue signaling, queer baiting and pinkwashing were often used and are not applicable, nor is “Get woke, go broke“.

Why would a whisky brand make an ad about a family with a transgender grandchild (26 years old, so that eliminates a lot of swear words) – this, folks, is called Diversity & Inclusion, and is used to load the brand. This has been done in recent years mainly for the benefit of Millennials and GenZ, who really appreciate this.

“At J&B, we want everyone to be able to celebrate Christmas without anyone being left out. Unfortunately, many people from the LGBTQ+ community feel uncomfortable or rejected in their own families on these days and cannot celebrate with them. In fact, for 77% of trans or non-binary people, family was the most difficult setting in their transition process. That’s why we at J&B created this Christmas Carol: a story about acceptance, respect and above all, celebration. Ana, the main character of this spot, is played by trans actress Ella Di Amore, born 26 years ago in Zaragoza. From J&B, we want to wish you all a very happy Christmas, in harmony, peace and above all respect”.

Incidentally, it was not a whim or a ‘one-hit wonder’ from the brand: earlier that year they traveled all over Spain to celebrate Pride in the places where it was needed most – the villages. They traveled thousands of miles so that “anyone who has ever had to leave their hometown, just because they loved and felt different, could return with their heads held high.” The accompanying video was called Hay Ganas de Orgullo de Pueblo (“We’re Feeling Village Pride”).

Doritos, The Best Gift (2020)

This Pepsico brand has a somewhat dubious history of Marketing the Rainbow, especially around the Super Bowl. They have since promised to do better, creating beautiful and eye-catching commercials, particularly in Mexico.

Based on a true story, they released this touching video for the 2020 holiday season, with the tagline “the best gift you can give this Christmas is to accept someone for who they are.”

The video shows a father turning to Reddit for advice on how to approach the topic of his son’s gay relationship. You can find the original Reddit thread on Bored Panda.

The video went viral, with over 14 million views on YouTube in its first two weeks.

The LGBT press was happy about it, but news sites like Fox9 were also full of praise. Attitude said: “The new Doritos ad shows a father embracing his gay son’s relationship and it’s Oh So Emotional. Can we get a movie version?” Many people joked: “I’m not crying, YOU’RE crying.”

The Doritos story is the 3rd most viewed video on my YouTube channel with 275,000 views, and 500 comments, with about 4,000 likes and 291 dislikes. “What does this have to do with Doritos?” was the most common criticism, but those people apparently have never heard of branding – or diversity and representation. However, the hate was pretty limited – especially compared to J&B – apart from the few trolls who vowed never to buy Doritos again. Such a ‘boycott’ only lasts for a short while.

I hope we get to see something more spectacular than Boots this season…

Alfred Verhoeven is a marketer and is in the final phase of his PhD research Marketing the Rainbow.
He previously wrote for ILOVEGAY about From Representation To Respect, The Musk Effect, Pride Month, The Oldest Rainbows, The Dutch Rainbows, The Belgian Rainbows, The Chinese Rainbows, Super Bowl Ads: What Would Jesus Do?, Get woke, go broke, Spain has 6.8 billion reasons to love rainbow tourists, Everyone’s gay in Amsterdam, Gay Capital, The Ideal Traveler, Abercrombie & Fitch : The Rise & The Fall, Barbiemania, Bud Light and the 4 bln dollar woman, Pronouns, About those rainbows, Alphabet soup, M&M’s and the lesbian invasion, The Men from Atlantis, 5 Bizarre LGBT Videos, TRANSparency, Transgender persons as a target group, 5 videos that went viral, Cultural sensitivities and social involvement in marketing, and 4 reasons to practice diversity.