The best and worst Christmas mobile device ads
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For advertisers, Christmas is the busiest time of year. When else is there an event that makes almost everyone happy that you can tie your brand to?
Better still, Christmas is in the public domain so it isn't like Santa or Jesus can sign an exclusive deal with McDonalds or Coke for the rights each year (although there are some conspiracy theories...)
So we thought it was about time to take a look back, at some of the best and worst festive TV mobile device adverts. But here's the thing… we're leaving it to you to decide which is the best and the worst.
Chuck Norris for T-Mobile
To paraphrase the well known meme, infamous 1980s hardman Chuck Norris doesn't mortgage his dignity for a quick buck… he had no dignity in the first place.
And so we start in the Czech Republic where the action star appeared in a campaign for T-Mobile (which still exists outside of the UK). In the below advert, someone tries to demonstrate their dominance over Norris… with predictable conclusions.
The campaign ran across a number of adverts - each as presumably hilarious in Czech as the last.
Samsung Galaxy Gear Snowboarding Advert
If you're looking to meet someone special this Christmas, then make sure you've got a stupid massive phone strapped to your wrist. The Samsung Galaxy Gear will make you irresistible, according to this video from Samsung's 2013 "Are you Geared Up?" campaign.
Want a woman's number? Why not secretly ask for it under the false pretense of demonstrating a feature on your smartwatch? But of course, if you really want to endear her to you, then don't forget to take crappy secret photos of her from behind as she snowboards downhill.
The Hoff for T-Mobile UK
What is it about rubbish 80s celebrities and T-Mobile? In this video for the company that now forms half of EE in the UK, a group of acapella singers (who apparently featured in an earlier ad), for some reason visit David Hasselhoff in his pantomime dressing room, and sing a medley of Christmas songs together.
At least this was 2010 - if it had happened a couple of years later it would have been the grimly inevitable Christmas Gangnam Style parody.
Christmas Poem for T-Mobile US
We didn't mean to feature quite so many contributions from T-Mobile, but say what you will about the company but it knows how to make a Christmas impression. And this might be the weird one yet.
This video features actual US CEO John LeGerre sitting in a big chair in front of a roaring fire - Jackanory style. But then his Christmas tale takes a rather more polemical turn than you might expect - attacking rival phone networks and ending with a sweary crescendo. Merry Christmas… we guess.
Samsung's oppressive Christmas
This ad from Samsung's "Christmas round ours" campaign last year features the bulky Gear S hidden in between twee family scenes suggesting you should submit to the power of Samsung and all of its many, many products.
But what's more remarkable is that it literally features guys in the pub joking about how heavy and massive the Gear S is - and how strong you have to be to use it. Self burn?
Samsung Sexy Santa Advert
Another Samsung advert and this one is a rather risqué approach to promoting the Galaxy's NFC file transfer functionality on the Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note 2.
In the video, the elves transfer a video for Santa to watch while on his sleigh… and then Mrs Claus does the same, and recommends he probably not watch it while at work. Filth.
Apple
Apple's 2013 Christmas advert is a surprisingly wholesome affair. No ultra-trendy hipsters dancing here - this time it is all about family. In the ad, we see a family sat around a TV watching clips that had been shot on an iPhone - with all of the emotion that entails.
Of course, what it doesn't show is the 20 minutes of hassle while they have to work out how to pair the iPhone with the Apple TV, and then the Wi-Fi dropping out after streaming demands too much bandwidth.