Watch Chevy’s holiday ad, featuring an emotional story about a woman with Alzheimer’s

The holidays can be a difficult time for family members of loved ones with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. But in a new ad, Chevrolet portrays how the season can also spark moments of joy, however fleeting. The spot, which debuts on TV during Fox’s Thanksgiving Day NFL broadcast of the Packers-Lions game, shows a woman with early-stage Alzheimer’s as her family gathers for the holidays. Distant and unaware, she slowly gains vibrancy after her granddaughter takes her on a ride in a 1972 Chevy Suburban. As an 8-track of John Denver’s “Sunshine On My Shoulders” plays, the two women drive through Holly, Michigan, visiting the grandma’s childhood home, high school and a drive-in theater where she kissed her now-husband for the first time—at which point she realizes she needs to get back home to help him cook the holiday meal. It marks the third straight year Chevy has run a holiday ad making use of one of its classic cars. The approach is more about making an emotional connection and leaning into the brand’s 112-year history than making a hard sell (although the ads subtly weave in modern Chevys). “Automobiles just have a special place [in the] psyche of Americans, just by virtue of the role they play, and what’s expected of them and how they really are an important marker for life’s events … things that are trivial and monumental all at the same time in people's lives,” said Chevrolet Marketing VP Steve Majoros, who referred to the annual ads as the brand’s “holiday card to America.” See other 2023 holiday ads here Last year’s holiday ad featured a 1957 Chevy Bel Air Nomad station wagon and a woman who found community in her neighbors after losing her husband in the Vietnam War. In 2021, Chevy told the story of a daughter who went on a covert mission to restore the 1966 Chevy Impala of her father, after he spent days looking at the dusty car while recounting bittersweet memories of his late wife. Commonwealth/McCann is behind all three ads. For this year’s spot, the brand and agency brought back director Tom Hooper, who worked on the 2021 ad. Ad Age A-List & Creativity Awards Final deadline approaching for annual program Enter here In keeping with its previous holiday strategy, Chevy will back this year’s spot with a modest media buy, which also includes NBC’s Thanksgiving Day NFL game, Hulu and cinema ads. The strategy relies on consumers sharing the ad organically on social media, including a longer form version that Chevy will post to its social channels. “We’re not going to go spend a trillion dollars in media,” instead relying on the “power of earned media and social” and consumer interest in “warm, emotive stories,” Majoros said. As it developed this year’s spot, Chevy consulted with the Alzheimer's Association. “We talked a lot about this notion of reminiscence therapy—not that it's a cure ... but the power of music, the power of memories are things that can enable the person going through it to feel more comfortable. And the people that are the caregivers that are surrounding them, to also feel more comfortable,” Majoros said.

Watch Chevy’s holiday ad, featuring an emotional story about a woman with Alzheimer’s

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