If Cute Elderly Men and Puppies Warm Your Heart, Prepare to Have It Explode With This Christmas Ad

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When it comes to creating emotional commercials, there's a certain formula that's wise for advertisers to follow.

To get it pitch perfect, you need:

  1. an animal, preferably a dog or cat (puppies and kittens are shoo-ins)
  2. an adorable elderly gentleman
  3. some type of montage that shows growth or an emotional journey
  4. a touch of humor (bonus points for well-timed profanity)
  5. a twist ending
  6. an almost indiscernible product placement
  7. a holiday-season air date

It's rare to get it all right, but this multiple-tissue Polish ad campaign has all of those things.

In it, an older man orders an "English for Beginners" language kit through an online auction site called Allegro (which is the product being promoted, even though you probably don't even realize it thanks to the language barrier). The three-minute video chronicles how he incorporates his studies in his simple, possibly lonely daily life — save for his sweet pet dog. Despite a well-placed curse word in a Post-It note-filled bathtub, the ending reveals for whom he went through all this work.

Watch it, and you'll see why we are already prepared to crown this the sweetest Christmas ad of the season . . . or, you know, of all time.