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EDMONTON - When Apple’s Christmas ad debuted Monday, it was an instant sensation. Everyone from Time to Entertainment Weekly toForbes to SlashGear wrote about it. The 90-second commercial wordlessly tells the story of the Harris family, leaving the generic suburbs to spend Christmas at their grandparents’ big old-fashioned house.
While the family toboggans and skates and makes snow angels, the seemingly surly teenage grandson hangs back, apparently immersed in his iPhone. Then, the boy reveals he’s been using Apple tech to whip up a funny, touching Christmas video that captures the joy of winter and moves his family to tears.
The commercial’s title? “Misunderstood.”
Some media commentators praised the ad’s sweet, ironic message and its subtle, quiet product placement for the iPhone 5S and Apple’s AirPlaywireless video system. Others, such as Forbes, complained that the ad actually validated the idea that we should use technology to distance ourselves from life as observers and voyeurs.
But everyone seemed to praise the winter fun and beauty that feature so prominently in the spot.
Edmontonians watched the ad in a different spirit, one of joyous incredulity.
Is that? Could it be? Us?
There are no iconic landmarks. No glass pyramids or green onion cakes. And Apple Canada spokeswoman Tara Hendela will neither confirm nor deny that the ad was shot here.
And yet, for keen-eyed Edmontonians, there were subtle tells. An Edmonton Transit sign at a bus stop. A familiar-looking character home on what seems to be Ada Boulevard. A community rink that looks suspiciously like the one in Cloverdale. A suburban streetscape that people in St. Albert are claiming as their own.
All that snow. That blue sky. Those icicles on the eaves. It seems Apple, with the almighty power of its global brand, has anointed Edmonton as its archetypal winter city, its dream Christmas card brought to life.
Brad Stromberg, Edmonton’s film commissioner, confirms the ad was indeed shot here, in late November and early December.
All the actors, says Stromberg, were from Alberta, as was part of the crew.
“That’s this winter’s snow,” he says. “We know snow, and we know how to celebrate it. And that’s the look they were going for.”
Stromberg says the city had to compete for the chance to star in Apple’s major promotion. But the city didn’t offer the company any financial incentives. From a tourism marketing perspective, Stromberg is a bit disappointed the setting isn’t identifiably Edmonton. But he hopes it will still be a good promo for Edmonton’s film industry.
Apple won’t say how much the ad cost or where exactly it will run. But given its YouTube viral appeal, it has the potential to reach millions of viewers around the world.
Of course, it’s a mark of Edmonton’s chronic insecurity to be so tickled that Apple filmed a major ad here. After all, cities such as Vancouver and Toronto play host to major American film shoots all the time. And we’ve had movies and commercial made here, too — though none with Apple’s brand power.
But Edmonton is a bit like that gawky adolescent boy. We are too often misunderstood and underestimated, and we too often sulk about it. A commercial like this, which celebrates this city’s authentic beauty, is a revelation, and not just for international audiences.
It’s been a hard, hard winter. The roads are bad. The sidewalks are worse. Apple’s real gift to Edmonton is to show us our city as others might see it: romantic, exotic, the Official Home of White Christmas.
“I think for us, as a community, winter is part of where we live and part of who we are,” says Mayor Don Iveson.
Iveson will neither confirm nor deny that he teared up as he watched the video.
“Well, I felt exactly the way the people at Apple were trying to get you to feel. To feel the warmth of the season.”
Like last week’s viral sensation, the WestJet Santa ad, the Apple commercial is sentimental, manipulative and wickedly brilliant marketing.
Yet it didn’t make me want to buy Apple-ware. It made me want to pull on snow pants and make angels in my backyard. It made me shrug off my own sulky winter cynicism for a moment, and glory in the strange wonder of this place.
Perhaps it shouldn’t take an Apple ad to convince me cold is cool. But sometimes, like the family in the commercial, we can’t see and appreciate how lucky we are, until we see ourselves on the screen.
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