A new Christmas advertisement made on a shoestring budget has found its way into the hearts of people across the globe.
An ad for family-owned Haford Hardware store in Rhayader, Wales, made for a mere $130 has made a splash across the internet with a heartwarming message of “Be a Kid this Christmas.” The video was made by Tom Jones, who runs the shop his family has owned since 1895. The star of the ad is Jones’s son, two-year-old Arthur.
Arthur is shown getting dressed and ready for a day of work at the shop, donning an apron, and helping customers while giving a sweet thumbs-up to everyone he greets. The end of the video, with a special twist, reveals the true meaning behind the ad and invites viewers to “Be a kid this Christmas.”
Arthur’s dad Tom said he and a family friend shot and edited the video themselves before sending it off to a sound studio to add a stirring and warm cover of Alphaville’s 1984 hit, “Forever Young.” Jones says that the only cost of the commercial came from paying for the sound engineer for the small fee of $130.
The family has created a tradition of making touching Christmas advertisements over the last three years. “We’ve had a great response these last two years, but nothing like this year. It’s just been crazy,” Jones said to CNN. As of publication of this article, the two-minute video has been viewed nearly 700,000 times. “We just make it for fun, really. We try and put a bit of a spotlight on small independent businesses that you get in rural areas where we are, and we try and show that we can offer just as much as your high street chains,” Jones also said.
“All three adverts touch upon the significance of family at Christmas and so it was extremely important to me that Arthur had a role in each one,” he said to the Daily Mail. “Showing the transition of him as a young baby in the first advert, through to the young man he is today, really does capture the essence of what we have been trying to create.”
