(PCM) A holiday television ad for the German supermarket Edeka featuring a lonely grandfather, whose family becomes too busy to visit even on Christmas, is stirring up a ton of emotion with viewers since it first graced the airwaves. It is literally bringing people to tears.
The ad takes us through the various phone calls of the grandfather’s family members calling to let him know that they won’t be able to make it home for the Christmas holiday. We then see the grandfather looking incredibly sad and lonely. The ad then shows the family members all receiving phone calls telling them that their grandfather/father has passed away. When they all return to the home to mourn his passing, he surprises them by stepping out of the kitchen, very much alive.
The video has already racked up over 30 million views on YouTube and left many viewers, ourselves included, in a very emotional state. It truly pulls at the heart-strings, however there are some that feel the ad went too far by having the grandfather fake his own death, calling that a bit grotesque.
The ad is meant to focus on a sensitive topic in Germany and everywhere else in the world, where an estimated 8 million people over 60 suffer from loneliness, especially the elderly. Do you think the ad went too far with this message or is it a wake-up call for us to begin thinking about our elderly relatives?