Infiniti Encourages New Tradition This Holiday Season Using Indistinctive Tree

Matt Posky
by Matt Posky

Now that Halloween has receded from the rear-view mirror, advertisers can really start ramping up their winter-themed commercials.

Automotive companies are particularly heavy handed at pushing advertisements highlighting “the season for giving,” without the accompanying specificity of what that phrase refers to.

Eager to cash in on the warm fuzziness of the seasonal aesthetic, Infiniti has partnered with the Arbor Day Foundation to plant 35,000 new trees on behalf of drivers, and came up with a corresponding television commercial and digital campaign.

The video advertisement is satisfactory in that it hauls out all the tropes we’ve come to expect from holiday promotional material. A handsome family is inside of their warm QX60 with a pine tree of some kind (the video did not specify) strapped to the roof. Other conifers are left at the side of the road, possibly due to some local tree blight. The family drives their Infiniti into a snowy wood and the tree is planted securely into the frozen soil.

The commercial ends when little girl whispers “see you next year” to the pine and places an ornament on it for reasons we can only guess.

Matt Posky
Matt Posky

A staunch consumer advocate tracking industry trends and regulation. Before joining TTAC, Matt spent a decade working for marketing and research firms based in NYC. Clients included several of the world’s largest automakers, global tire brands, and aftermarket part suppliers. Dissatisfied with the corporate world and resentful of having to wear suits everyday, he pivoted to writing about cars. Since then, that man has become an ardent supporter of the right-to-repair movement, been interviewed on the auto industry by national radio broadcasts, driven more rental cars than anyone ever should, participated in amateur rallying events, and received the requisite minimum training as sanctioned by the SCCA. Handy with a wrench, Matt grew up surrounded by Detroit auto workers and managed to get a pizza delivery job before he was legally eligible. He later found himself driving box trucks through Manhattan, guaranteeing future sympathy for actual truckers. He continues to conduct research pertaining to the automotive sector as an independent contractor and has since moved back to his native Michigan, closer to where the cars are born. A contrarian, Matt claims to prefer understeer — stating that front and all-wheel drive vehicles cater best to his driving style.

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  • Mcs Mcs on Nov 08, 2016

    I wonder if VW's holiday ads will be featuring Krampus?

  • Jeff S Jeff S on Nov 09, 2016

    Most people watching this ad will just see it as an ad during the holiday season, not offensive but not persuading them to buy an Infinity. I doubt ads persuade most unless they were inclined to buy and then how much is the ad going to influence what brand they buy?

  • Corey Lewis Corey Lewis on Nov 09, 2016

    I'm glad they showed a mixed race family, but the wife is too thin and will now enrage the Women Of The Internet with thin shaming.

  • Jeff S Jeff S on Nov 09, 2016

    Agree, there has to be someone that will be offended by this commercial even though it was made to be politically correct. It is hard not to offend someone even when you are consciously trying not to offend anyone. Maybe Infinity could go back to their original advertising which only showed pussy willows.

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