Posted by Christmas time and the holiday season are always the ideal moment of the year for commercials able to touch a chord with us. Making people sob is a unique ability only a few brands have, which is why those ads stand out from the others. Many examples can come to your mind: Amazon, The Farmer’s Dog, and, more recently, Hobby Lobby are probably the first emotional ads you’ll remember from 2023. However, after the new Kroger holiday commercial was out, you’ll never be able to forget its story, characters, and song.
The idea behind the 2023 Kroger holiday commercial is simple: food is what connects us all, the product that makes their stores unique, so their last commercial tells a beautiful story about a family that reconnects with all their loved ones during the holiday season, celebrating with special recipes. It’s an animated ad founded on the tagline “fresh for everyone,” reminding us that every celebration needs special ingredients for our favorite food.
It’s one of the best commercials of the year, and people’s reaction proves it: the Internet is full of watchers who admit they were in tears after seeing the 2023 Kroger commercial, and the comments under the Youtube video keep arriving, recognizing its beauty.
The Kroger commercial shows a family that makes an important decision: their daughter enters a student exchange program, so every year, she travels to a different part of the world while other students join the family. Year after year, the family welcomes a new member, creating a new meaningful connection. But as time goes by, the parents miss their daughter. This gives the father an extraordinary idea for this holiday: he invites their daughter and all the students they have hosted in the last few years for a memorable holiday dinner together. As the 2023 Kroger holiday commercial explains, food connects us all: no celebration can be enjoyed without a great meal shared with the people we love.
The song featured in the 2023 Kroger holiday commercial is Photograph by Ed Sheeran. It’s a beautiful track that contributes to the ad’s unique atmosphere: it was released by the English singer in 2014 as a single from his second album X. It’s one of the many hits Ed Sheraan collected in his career, reaching the high spots of charts in many countries worldwide. One of the reasons why that song is so beloved is its official video, which shows scenes from Ed Sheeran’s actual childhood, learning music, playing with Lego, and showing how his character was already evolving. You can find the official video for Ed Sheeran’s Photograph below.
The song’s lyrics celebrate love even when your significant one is distant. Ed Sheeran looks at the photograph that portrays the moments together, using that memory to stay connected with the other person. Even though love can hurt sometimes, especially when you miss someone, it’s the only thing that makes our lives beautiful. You can enjoy the song’s meaning with the lyrics you hear in the Kroger commercial:
Loving can hurt
Loving can hurt sometimes
But it’s the only thing
That I know
And when it gets hard
You know it can get hard sometimes
It is the only thing that makes us feel alive
We keep this love in a photograph
We make these memories for ourselves
Where our eyes are never closing
Hearts are never broken
And time’s forever frozen still
So you can keep me
Inside the pocket of your ripped jeans
Holdin’ me closer ’til our eyes meet
You won’t ever be alone
A touching story, a beautiful song, and a commercial that reminds us how important food is in the special moments of our lives: Kroger definitely won us during the 2023 holiday season.
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