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Speaking in generalities, I think creatives have opened a door and walked their clients right through into a commercial reality in which people over 50 are still attractive and sexually viable, women come in all shapes and sizes, families sometimes have two moms or two dads, tattooed people are not criminals, love is dissolving racial boundaries (*bows down to Cheerios*), and the sales discourse ranges across formerly taboo subjects like incontinence, ED, toenail fungus invading the red carpets of Hollywood, and so much more.<\/span><\/p>\n Another has opened, and it stands starkly in contrast to all of the warm, fuzzy, and often funny\/cute holiday adverts that sprinkle us with yummy sparkling bow-tied rainbows of consumerism. There has always been one or two of these maudlin little :30 tales of heart-tugging, home-for-the-holidays manipulation. But this year, as <\/span>Advertising Age<\/span><\/i> pointed out, ads number in the double digits that aim to have you sobbing; you can troll for them on its sister site, <\/span>Creativity-Online.com<\/span><\/i><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n The one that has sparked the most social discourse, even a feature on <\/span>The Today Show<\/span><\/i>, comes from German supermarket brand Edeka. It opens on an absolutely heartbreaking elderly man, left to spend the holidays by himself because his adult children are too busy with their own lives. Cut to scenes of said adult children receiving devastating news, which appears to be that their father died. Alone. Now, too late, they all rush home. <\/span><\/p>\n Fake out! He\u2019s still alive! \u00a0\u201cHow else could I have brought you all together?\u201d he asks his tearful, grief-stricken family. Cut to relief and a big dinner, served up with food from the grocery store totally forgotten as you blow your nose, feeling both happy he\u2019s not dead and shamelessly manipulated.<\/span><\/p>\n