John Travolta’s Santa Claus Is Strutting to Town: Behind Capital One’s ‘Saturday Night Fever’ Christmas Ad

“The exciting thing about holiday marketing is the opportunity to embrace the cultural shift in seasons and mindset as the year winds down and the holidays approach,” says Scott Brewer, SVP, group creative director at GSD&M, the creative agency behind Capital One’s latest ‘Saturday Night Fever’-inspired Christmas campaign. “They aren’t just one-off moments but they become memorable and anticipated cultural icons, which is what we set out to do with Travolta Santa.”

Avoiding clichés and the “strong gravitational pull” of mimicking familiar historical holiday ads, GSD&M teamed up with Hungry Man US director, Bryan Buckley – as well as Tony Manero himself, John Travolta –  to bring some disco to the holiday season in ‘Holiday Night Fever’.

Bryan, known in the ad industry as ‘King of the Super Bowl’, tells LBB’s Ben Conway that there used to be a ‘huge gap between the Christmas commercials and the Super Bowl work in terms of creativeness’ in the US. However, that gap appears to be closing. “How that work stacks up against the UK work, regarding being a big cultural moment, is hard for me to say,” he says. “But based on the response I’ve received, I would say this spot definitely hit the pop culture zeitgeist here in the States.”

While many brands ‘dust off a different playbook and suddenly swing big’ around events like the Super Bowl and the holidays, Scott says that Capital One operates that way year-round. This has made the Big Game specialist Bryan a “natural and beloved” production partner for the brand and agency. 

“Bryan’s experience on advertising’s biggest stage, his ability to naturally and effortlessly gain the respect of and build quick relationships with celebrity talent, and the level of care and effort he puts into every detail of a production are unmatched,” says Scott. “For this project, it was a classic agency-director-client collaboration, as bringing Bryan in at the script and storyboard level only ratcheted up the effort, excitement, and detail that we brought to the production.” 

Detailing his own excitement for this festive film, Bryan says, “I literally could never get into a disco when I was a teen. I never quite had the swagger or the shoes to get past the bouncer with my fake ID. So, to find myself staring at a brief recreating the opening of the movie that brought disco and Travolta to superstardom – I jumped all over it.” He adds, “I was shooting at the time in London and I remember being up all night writing the treatment. I was obsessed!”

John Travolta has played Santa for Capital One before, in a 2020 holidays spot featuring his ‘Pulp Fiction’ co-star, Samuel L. Jackson. After how much buzz was generated the first time round, it was a no-brainer for Scott to bring him back as a Saint Nick-Tony Manero hybrid.

“His enthusiasm for reprising a role from such a meaningful and pivotal moment in his life was something he was immediately drawn to doing,” he says. “At that point, the script went into fine-tuning mode to make sure all the Capital One product moments and messages maintained prominence, while the details and Easter eggs of the original movie were cleverly woven into the storyline.”

Describing it as “the rarest of opportunities,” Bryan says that there was huge pressure to deliver when using such a beloved IP in a big holidays spot. Scott agrees, adding, “Any time you pay homage to a classic like ‘Saturday Night Fever’ it comes with huge responsibility.”

He continues, “We wanted to pay homage to the original while achieving our own product needs and apply it all to a new context and shift in tone to the holidays. The conversation immediately centred around the importance and gravitas of paying proper homage to the original scenes – especially during the classic and memorable opening musical sequence to the movie – while weaving it all into our new holiday framework.” 

To pay ‘proper homage’ to the legendary film, the production accurately imitates and reimagines the classic shots from the movie’s street-strutting opening credits, not to mention the iconic dancefloor moment, all set to the Bee Gees’ ‘Stayin’ Alive’.

For the director, the first key was recreating this famous opening titles’ walk through Brooklyn. This had its own challenges, however, as the sequence had to be shot in a single day on a Paramount studio backlot in mid-August.

“We had to nail that opening walk,” he says. “As we analysed it, we realised they used two different lenses and techniques to achieve it. So, we did the same using both Steadicam and techno crane – I loved the Dutch angles from the movie and we worked them in. The opening sequence of the movie ran over three minutes. We had 60 seconds and we had to get the dance in – oh, and Capital One product moments.”

Thankful that Paramount has no trees – a dead give-away for the time of year – he says that a mixture of practical snow with CG snow in the deep background achieved the wintry look at the height of summer. Overcoming the 90-degree weather, the team were prepared and walked through every shot with John before his lengthy hair, make-up and wardrobe session that brought his retro, but very warm, Santa costume to life.

[Above: John Travolta and Bryan Buckley on set]

“We worked with Legacy FX’s Alan Scott to design the ultimate disco Santa look,” says Bryan. “Crushed velvet bell bottoms, flared collar, leather jacket… a tasteful amount of bedazzle. Alan also handled the wig and beard – the man and his company are simply working at a level no one else is. They are the best.” 

He continues, “We studied the wardrobe samples in raw form to see how they would move and reflect light before selecting them. John [then] did a fitting and added his own touch, selecting the vest from the prior Santa costume we did. Toss in a fat suit with that costume and it was really hot! But John didn’t blink. He’s a warrior.”

Learning later on that John hadn’t performed the dance sequence from ‘Saturday Night Fever’ since shooting it in 1977, Bryan shares that the perfectionist actor worked on a granular level with the director to find the right mix between Tony Manero and Santa. In case you’re interested, the final product is 54% Tony and 46% Santa.

“Watching him play with that was just incredible,” he says. “There were misty eyes when Donna Pescow [Annette in ‘Saturday Night Fever’] saw John. It was a surreal moment for them, no doubt, to be back shooting 46 years later.” 

Having just one day to shoot all of John’s setups made for a particular challenge, so Bryan’s editor Andrew Ratzlaff made a tight previz to ensure the choreography was perfect and every shot counted. John, concerned that the original song used for the famous dance was ‘You Should Be Dancing’ and not ‘Stayin’ Alive’, then went to work on his moves at his studio in Florida before the big day.

“We were asking him to do the same dance to a slightly slower tempo, in a Santa fat suit, which presented a challenge,” says Bryan. “We also had to cut down the original three-minute historic dance segment into a 15-second piece. Needless to say, I think it all worked out well.” 

He adds, “We cranked the Bee Gees’ ‘Stayin’ Alive’ on the first take till our last shot. Every take. John just owned it. We were back in 1977 once again.”