London - It has all the ingredients of a major Christmas advert – a young child, a catchy song and a heart-warming storyline.
And it has been going down a storm with hundreds of thousands of views online.
But this is no big-budget production as favoured by brands such as John Lewis, Sainsbury’s, Cadbury and Amazon. Instead it is a Christmas video produced for less than £100 (about R2 000) by a family-run hardware store in Mid Wales.
The two-minute advert, which took only one day to film, features two-year-old Arthur Jones. It was made by his father Tom, whose family owns Hafod Hardware, and friend Josh Holdaway.
Their only expense was the music, a cover of Alphaville’s 1984 hit Forever Young performed by American singer-songwriter Andrea von Kampen, which cost around £80.
The video opens with Arthur waking and walking to the shop, which has been a landmark in the market town of Rhayader since 1895. He is greeted by his grandmother and dons an apron to start work. Arthur mends a broom, sweeps the floor, stocks shelves and serves customers – including his grandfather – badly wrapping their purchases and giving a thumbs-up.
The film ends with Arthur shutting up shop and bending to pick up a huge tree. As he does, he turns into his father and carries it off while the slogan ‘Be a kid this Christmas’ appears.
The video, posted on YouTube and Facebook on Sunday, has gone viral and is receiving 100 000 views a day. Many say it is their favourite festive commercial of 2019.
Jones, 30, said. "The comments we’ve had so far have been amazing.
"My son is such a bright boy and I would be lying if I said it was difficult to get him to perform on screen."
He asked Von Kampen to cover the theme song.
"She was happy to do it. She recorded it in a studio and paid $100 for a sound engineer – that’s all the advert has cost us.
"But there is an underlying message. We are just a small independent shop in Mid Wales trying to compete with the big boys. We’ve shown that it can be done on a very small budget."