In this article:
- Macy’s introduces a new creation for its Thanksgiving Day Parade in an animated feature.
- It’s cute. But misses in more than one way
Move over Rudolph, there’s a new reindeer in town! Before Macy’s unveils its new balloon at the annual (except when canceled for live spectators due in 2020) Thanksgiving Day parade, it described it this way: “This is the story of Tiptoe. A little reindeer with a big problem. She’s absolutely terrified of flying. So her friends get together and teach her a very important lesson: if you believe in yourself, there’s no telling how high you can soar.”
Aaannddd… yes, the plot does appear to owe much to Disney’s Dumbo, and the lesson is pretty much as trite as can be. But those who watched seem inclined to like it as you can see from the comment on the video itself and on Twitter.
The average viewer gets so swept up in the feel-good message that they fail to note the fact that you would never find penguins near polar bears outside of a zoo. The bears are, in fact, native to the north pole, but the birds live in the south pole.
What I find even more surprising than the warm reception to the new reindeer is that she does not appear to be offered for sale on the Macy’s site. A Google search for Tiptoe Reindeer for shopping only brings me to Prosparty.com but not to Toys R Us, which now comes under the Macy’s brand.
It seems like a major lost opportunity, particularly because the video ends with a little girl clutching her own stuffed reindeer for comforting security before boarding a flight. Certainly, Macy’s will have to get a hold of the toy version to live up to its promise to donate a thousand of them to Make-A-Wish kids and other charities.
But more than selling the reindeer itself, the marketing is about selling the Macy’s brand as the holiday shopping destination. As far as that goes, it appears to be working, kinda sorta. But, without ingenuity, originality, authenticity, and without tying such a campaign to larger messages, let alone to customer-centric plays that involve multichannel activity and data collection+analyzing, the narrative of the video isn’t the only thing that’s totally outdated here.
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