It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year – for Christmas Commercials

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It’s the gift that keeps on giving – the heartwarming ads that are released this time of year, particularly by British retailers.

The ads have been a staple of my blog since the beginning, and this year will be no different. My plan is to share several Christmas ads over the next few weeks, one at a time.

The one for today’s post is actually from 2018, but I just found out about it a couple of weeks ago, courtesy of my sister.

The commercial is from France, and features Bouyges Telecom.

I found it to be a heartwarming commercial, and I discovered some fun facts, courtesy of Wikipedia, about the song featured in the ad.

“Come and Get Your Love” is a song by Native American rock band Redbone. The song peaked at number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on April 13, 1974. It spent 18 weeks in the Top 40 and landed as the fourth-most popular song on the Hot 100 for 1974. The single was certified gold by the RIAA on April 22, 1974, which indicates that it had shipped over a half-million copies in North America. The song is Redbone’s highest-charting single.

Now here’s the interesting part.

In France, the single peaked at number 177 on the singles sales chart (physical sales + downloads) in 2017. The following year, Redbone’s version featured in a Christmas 2018 media advertising campaign from Bouygues, the French telecommunications company, and the song soon rose to the top of the pop charts. It entered the downloads chart’s Top 10, and reached number one on the singles sales chart at the end of the year. It also peaked at number 20 on the singles chart (downloads plus streaming) during the last week of the year.

I’m not really sure why it was as high as number 177 in 2017, but it’s easy to see the effect that the commercial had on the popularity of the song in 2018.

I’m sure Redbone would have never guessed that one of their songs would be part of a French Christmas commercial 45 years later.

It’s a small world after all.

Happy Holidays…

 

Published by Jim Borden

A 60-something guy trying to figure out the world, and his place in it. Happily married for 40-plus years, three wonderful sons. Accounting teacher, fitness enthusiast, blogger, reader.

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50 thoughts on “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year – for Christmas Commercials”

  3. Reminds me of Sixto Rodriguez, an American pop singer from Detroit who was never a big star in the USA, but somehow became a superstar in South Africa. And all without his knowledge for many years, until someone brought it to his attention.

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  5. Many people have taken to this ad (I’m one of them). I have seen it in a half dozen places in the last two weeks, which seems odd because I don’t have much recollection of it from past years. It’s a great story about the history of the song on the music charts.

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      3. That is bizarre. Occasionally, I’ll have a bunch of views of an old post from out of the blue that makes me wonder, but never for any sustained period of time like that.

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  6. The connection between father and son with the way the song was handed down to the next generation is very heartwarming. It gets me in a feel good Christmas mood. I didn’t realize Come and Get Your Love was preformed by a Native American group.

    The commercial also got my attention because it has parallels with the cool second scene from the movie Guardians of the Galaxy. On the planet Morag, the main character, Peter Quill, is strolling through a cave in search of an object that would become the centerpiece of the movie, an ancient and powerful Infinity Stone. Quill proceeds through the cave while dancing solo to Come and Get Your Love which is playing on a Sony Walkman that was a gift from his mother. As a reader of comic books in grade school and beyond, I’m a fan of recent movies about the heroes of Marvel and D.C. comics.

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    1. I also read that the song was used in the movie avengers: endgame in 2019.
      I agree it was a heartwarming video, no surprise that was so popular.
      My oldest son he’s been a lifelong fan of comic books.

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  10. great choice, so poignant, it made me tear up a little. I had no idea about the background of the song and your info filled in some blanks for me. interesting how a song can suddenly skyrocket when put in a different light. I love your series of Christmas commercials and this is a great one to kick it off this year –

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