We needed to show Australia how an ALDI Christmas can make even the most

unexpected of guests feel welcome, in the most Australian of ways.

In this year’s Christmas campaign, ALDI put Aussie generosity to the test, with Santa’s

unforeseen crash landing in the Aussie outback just before Christmas. Luckily for Santa, the whole town welcomed him in with open arms, and helped him get back on his feet. At the same time, they showed him what it was like to celebrate a perfect Aussie Christmas, with some delicious ALDI grub to boot.

Santa is one of the most celebrated Christmas symbols available to us in the western

world, and is equally an icon of generosity during this time of year. The campaign flips

the construct on its head, whereby it is in fact the town that offers Santa the ultimate act of generosity, enabled by their plentiful and delicious ALDI goods of course. In doing so, we also transformed one of the most inhospitable landscapes, the Australian Outback, into a beacon of hospitality at Christmas.

The campaign played in the grey area between fiction and reality. It’s the contrast

between this outsized festive figure and a gritty, hardworking rural community that gives the campaign its interest value. Because of this, casting was crucial. Our Santa had to be believable – you had to feel for him, and care if he got his present delivery back on track. In fact, Santa, and the woman who takes him in, were the only professional actors in the campaign. Everyone else was from the local rural community, adding to the authenticity. It is the perfect blend of myth vs. reality; the magic of a Christmas icon we all know and love, rooted in a very real, Aussie place, with real Aussie people and with a very real Santa that we wanted to be impossible not to believe in.