Hobby Lobby Craft a Charming Fall Ad

Of all US retailers, Hobby Lobby are the brand that’s most embraced the “storytelling mode” of holiday ads. They leave hard sales messages out of their holiday season commercials and instead opt to tell a heartwarming tale that will leave audiences feeling more positive about the brand as they do their festive shopping. This year their Fall commercial is another example of what they do so well. And with its emphasis on baking it’ll strike a chord in the run-up to Thanksgiving too!

“Pie” shows a dad and daughter baking – he’s making a delicious fruit pie for a family feast; she’s copying his every move using a toy stove and play food from Hobby Lobby. And we do mean every move – if he drops an egg by accident, she does it deliberately. And when dad pricks his finger by mistake, his little girl pretends to on purpose. It’s a super charming scene, which ends with the family gathering round to eat the delicious pie – and one more cute imitation from the daughter.

It’s another Hobby Lobby ad which keeps the brand and products discreet and focuses on making viewers feel more. In the Test Your Ad model, this emphasis on emotion is the smartest way to make advertising that drives long-term brand growth. The more people feel, the more people buy, and connecting with audiences emotionally is the best route to lasting effectiveness. Of course, you shouldn’t neglect Brand Fluency – you have to make the brand clear enough that people can still identify it.

With “Pie”, Hobby Lobby have struck just the right balance. It scores an Exceptional 5.1-Stars on the Test Your Ad platform, putting it in the top percentile of US video ads, and setting a standard this year’s holiday ads will find difficult to challenge. “Pie” is also right in line with average Fluency, so even with the brand in the background, it’s still identifiable to 89% of viewers.

What makes it work so well emotionally? The secret is in the great performances from the two main actors and the high levels of “between-ness” the ad conjures up. In Orlando Wood’s Lemon and Look out books, “between-ness” is the word he uses for all the different kinds of interactions between people on screen – like dialogue, gestures and meaningful glances.

Between-ness matters because it draws the ‘broad-beam’ attention of the right side of the brain, which pays attention to context and relationships between people and things, and which is associated with much greater long-term effectiveness in ads. The whole storyline of “Pie”, with the girl imitating her dad even when it’s silly or funny, couldn’t be better designed to create that sense of “between-ness”. And with strong characters and a compelling storyline also getting that broad-beam attention, it’s no surprise that Hobby Lobby gets such high effectiveness.

The brand ends with a deal – 50% off Fall decor – that finishes the ad on a high and with a branding boost. As holiday season gets underway, and viewers’ thoughts turn to Thanksgiving and Christmas, we’ll see more brands turn to storytelling to get audiences in a joyful mood. Hobby Lobby have given them a high bar to clear.