Last year we had the Mistletoe Belt Buckle promo video – light-hearted and in the worst possible taste (and no-one bought me one!). You can see that video again here.
This year’s tacky mistletoe video prize has to go to Smirnoff, who’ve launched a fake "Save the Mistletoe" ad campaign, based on the activities of the (hopefully fictional!) Mistletoe Appreciation Society of America (or MASA – geddit?).
(NB there’s a birthdate and country of residence requirement to enter before viewing these Smirnoff links – if you’re a UK viewer you’ll have to choose a country at random, as Smirnoff haven’t included UK as a choice…).
You can see the basic stuff at their "Campaign Website" savethemistletoe.org where you can guess the quality of what follows when you see the words "millions of mistletoe are brutally uprooted ". This for a plant that does not, of course, have any roots.
It’s supposed to be fun, and is, in a tacky and slightly annoying sort of way. The accompanying videos (there are two, one showing [alleged] despoilation of mistletoe, and one a spoof celebrity campaign song) seem to feature rather a lot of very obviously plastic mistletoe. But, at the risk of being a bit purist/finnickity/serious, I do think it could’ve been so much better. It could have made to look like a realistic campaign, and really fooled people. But maybe that would have been even sillier?? And perhaps it does fool some people?????