Samsung holiday celeb ad seeks repeat magic

Samsung hopes to make viral lightning strike twice for the holidays.

Even as the electronics giant has lost some serious mojo to Apple over the past year, its big holiday campaign that breaks on this Friday is a creative nod to what's worked once already: celebrity husband-and-wife duo Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard living a Samsung-driven life.

The twist this time: Not even advanced pregnancy can stop the couple from totally doing-up their home for Christmas. In the ad dubbed "Home for the Holidays," their Samsung devices seem to play a role in everything they do in their holiday decorating — from the moment they rise, thanks to their Samsung phone alarm, until they doze off watching a holiday film on their Samsung TV.

For Samsung — heavily dependent like all electronics upon holiday sales for its smartphones, TVs, tablets and cameras — this ad is all about generating eyeballs. It was a no-brainer to bring back the couple, whose wildly successful summer feel-good ad showing them joking back and forth via Samsung tablets generated more than 20 million YouTube views.

Now, Samsung wants to top that with the ad showing the couple going totally overboard for Christmas — from how they decorate the house to how they prepare a holiday meal.

In a phone interview with Paste BN, Bell and Shepard say their infatuation with holiday celebrating is genuine. "We're known for being very enthusiastic celebrants," says Shepard, 39, who since 2010, has played the role of Crosby Braverman on the NBC show Parenthood, now in its final season.

"It's easy for us to expose something that we normally do anyways," says Bell, 34, whose real-life due-date is Dec. 26. Despite being pregnant, she's continued to film the Showtime series House of Lies. The Samsung ad even features their dogs, Lola and Pat.

In one holiday dinner scene, the two dogs sit and eat at the dinner table with the couple — not a simple thing to capture on film. But Todd Pendleton, chief marketing officer at Samsung Telecommunications, says the dogs nailed it in just two takes. "Very professional pups," he says.

For Samsung, this is the first in a series of ads that will air over the next month. Samsung's holiday marketing plans also include Samsung Galaxy Studio pop-up stores in malls and digital and social advertising.

One industry analyst says the popularity of the first Bell and Shepard outing was due primarily to one thing: It felt intimate. "It felt like a private look inside the life of a very public couple," says Rebecca Lieb, an analyst at Altimeter Group who covers digital advertising, media and content.

The new ad is no less intimate. The commercial opens with the couple rising from bed in their matching holiday pj's. Because the baby is due in a matter of days, the couple say they'll stay home for the holidays this year.

And, yes, they both admit to pilfering some of holiday goodies that were used in the ad.

"We've now both got light-up Christmas sweaters," boasts Shepard. "And, to be honest, there was some light ornament theft."