Set to a gentle reworking of The Pixies "Where Is My Mind", this 90 second spot from Beattie McGuinness Bungay positions Thomson Holidays as a chance to rediscover the quality time you miss throughout the rest of the year. But...
...I find it a little ill-judged. Everything about the family suggests the upper (though possibly liberal) end of the middle class spectrum. It all reeks of expensive vintage shops, 4x4s, golden retrievers, and detached houses with long-haired toddlers running around being creative. The instagram-y filters at different points of the ad don't help either.
A child voiceover is fine if they're clearly too young to have written the words given. But this boy looks just old enough to at least understand what he's saying, and the final shot where he speaks the words to the camera break the illusion of a child reading an adult's words. He just comes across like a particularly precocious privately educated swot. The meaningful, knowing look to the camera at the start only exacerbates this.
It was suggested to me that perhaps they're pitching at that end of the market - but in that case, why was the ad launched during an X-Factor live show? And why, when I google "Thomson Holidays", does it immediately give me "cheap summer and winter package holidays"?
I'd really like to know the thinking behind this, because it's a big campaign, but at the moment, I just don't see it.
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