The holiday season comes with a lot of expectations. The keeping up of old traditions, of family obligations and there’s also expectations of Christmas Ads. The highly anticipated Christmas ads from the big players like John Lewis, Sainsbury’s and other high street brands fill the screens following a tried and tested and to be honest, a very expected format: the classic tugging at the heartstrings of the viewers. Animals are animated and personified, children are sad, children are happy, magical things swirl through the air, old people are lonely and suddenly the moon can talk! It’s cute, it’s emotional, but to be honest it feels dated and for a different generation. So when Converse came to us with a brief that said ‘fuck the season’, we happily obliged, better yet an opportunity to feature the icon of the year, Charli XCX. We knew that we would be steering far, far away from any traditional and typical Christmas advertising.

We spent time deciphering what ‘fuck the season’ meant to us as well as what it would mean to our Gen-Z audience. Brat summer was coming to an end and we were of course highly inspired by the energy that it had brought to the world. We developed a manifesto and strategy on what it means to fuck the season. We all know that the holiday season can be pretty dead. It’s stressful, and there are all the expectations of gift-giving, dinner organising, and shopping. You have to show up looking a certain way to Christmas parties, all put together, it can be tiresome and we go through the same thing every year in an endless loop, most of us maybe wishing it was all over. Whilst it’s not all negative and Christmas can have its lovely moments, our audience wouldn’t live their lives like that during the rest of the year, accepting other people’s traditions and standards. Not very brat at all.

We wanted to explore what would happen if you let the feral energy of brat summer take over and continue into brat winter. Our aim was to create a campaign full of rebellious Christmas spirit, aimed at those who don’t want to conform. Those who embrace living unapologetically, those who embrace both being cute and disgusting, lux and trashy, fierce, being hot, dumb, ironic – all of the things at once or none at all, doing whatever they feel like doing. And who better to front this than Charli XCX herself, the queen and creator of brat.

With all that in mind, we developed out the overarching idea of ‘night b4 xcxmas’, moving away from the expected actions that would be happening the night before Christmas. We instead explored the rebellious actions that Charli or our audience would be doing the night before xcxmas. When it came to the art direction we wanted to honour the image and aesthetic that Charli has created for herself whilst also pushing the boundaries to create iconic imagery. Using some key filters; unhinged, provocative, fun(ny), real & holiday spirit - the campaign's visual output embodies these guidelines.

This is the point where the creative was shared with Charli in order to get her green light on the overarching creative and strategy as well as bring in her preferences of creative partners. As a chronically online gen-z creative it was of course an honour to have the work not only seen by but approved by Charli. As we wanted the campaign to be as authentic to Charli as possible, she suggested creative partners which led us to work with photographer and director Sharna Osborne. This was the perfect fit for our campaign, her carefully crafted aesthetic of muted tones, mischievous style and slightly gritty retro, VHS world felt like the perfect visual tool to continue telling the story. Sharna honed in on the actions of the video and we worked closely to develop out the full story. We landed on Charli rebelliously shredding up old Hallmark Christmas cards, as she simply sits on a chair and stares right down the camera. A true fuck you to the holiday season, juxtaposing the retro Christmassy set behind her. We knew that this shouldn’t follow your standard Christmas ad formats, instead, we focused on a short format video accompanied by a curated selection of stills. Perfect for our audience on socials as well as being impactful enough to be shown out of home.

Sharna and I worked closely on developing the art direction and set design, working with the MOX production team in NYC to find a location house that had the right energy and with set designer Milena Gorum to bring it to life. The final outcome included giant pink bows, piles of presents wrapped with images of Charli, shredded Christmas cards and a sea of Converse ready to be gifted. Charli was involved throughout the whole creative process and had oversight of all changes and updates up until the shoot day as well as in post-production. We collaborated with her usual glam and styling team, and we were keen to keep her iconic curly hair and snatched eyes paired with her amazing style. The blend of Charli and Converse felt natural from the beginning, Charli even wore her own pair of chucks on the day of the shoot, which made it extra brat.

Looking back on what we created, it was a super exciting, creative process. It was obviously bound to be, with such an incredible brief from Converse, allowing us to tap into our chaotic energy with the trust they gave us, and that spirit carried through into the campaign itself. It was never created to fit into the traditional Christmas ad landscape. By tapping into Charli XCX’s mischievous, daring and bratty energy and pairing that with Converse’s rebellious brand energy we aimed to create something that felt authentic and playful. Collaborating with amazing creatives who made the shoot happen in less than 2 weeks felt very brat. Hopefully, the campaign serves as a reminder that the holiday season can look like whatever you want it to look like.