Shock tactics / Ruavieja’s message is an unsettling one for Christmastime but the scale of the response suggests that it has struck a nerve with the insight. Plenty of brands create campaigns around the idea that it is good to spend time with loved ones, but Ruavieja has found a new angle by using data from Spain’s national statistics agency and others to show people how little time they have together.

Ruavieja’s product (a cream-coloured herbal liquor) barely features in the online ad, and it is only shown at the end of the four-minutes in an unrelated shot of a family raising their glasses together at home. But in an interview with Muse by Clio, Kerman Romeo, Ruavieja’s brand manager said: ‘We firmly believe that consumers want brands to talk to them about things that really matter, not only about products.’

Brand building / Without doubting that sentiment, the broad emotional message in the ad associates Ruavieja with spending time with loved ones, and the hope for the brand is that when people are shopping for refreshments for social events they will think about Ruavieja. It’s associating the liquor with a specific occasion, in much the same way that John Lewis uses emotional films to remind people that it’s the best place to buy thoughtful gifts for the people you care about most. This speaks to the concept of mental availability that Byron Sharp champions in his book, How Brands Grow, and that he links to high market penetration. It also ties with the research of Les Binet and Peter Field on behalf of the IPA, which found that emotional, fame-driving campaigns had a 39% chance of increasing profits, compared with information-led campaigns, which had a 24% chance (from Marketing in the Era of Accountability).

Ruavieja’s accompanying interactive website meanwhile allows for viewers to apply the calculations shown in the film to their own relationships. The brand draws people in with a promise of personalised data to get them to internalise the message (by actively engaging with it) and - it would hope - internalise the brand’s association with that message, too.