Vodafone Ireland is pulling on the heart strings with its Christmas TV commercial that centres on a young farmer and his sweetheart abroad.

Made by creative agency Grey London, Vodafone says the aim is to highlight  ‘stronger connections’ due to the network’s reach.

The 90-second commercial features multiple pub scenes, so Vodafone and Grey will be hoping that the latest Covid panic doesn’t shut down hostelries in the coming weeks.

Played out across several years, the commercial film highlights the happ couple’s growing closeness, the sadness of their New Year goodbyes, and the trials of being apart over the intervening months. Naturally, there is a happy ending.

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According to the creative agency: “The idea is inspired by some powerful truths, two long-standing, one more recent.

“The first is the migration from rural to urban areas in search of advancement and opportunity. The second is the traditional pilgrimage home for Christmas to see family and friends – where the population swells in local communities the length and breadth of the country.

“The third and most important is that Vodafone customers can now live and work wherever they choose, confident in the knowledge that they will always be connected.

Orla Nagle, Head of Consumer Brand, Vodafone Ireland, commented: “This year’s Vodafone Ireland Christmas ad captures the growing feeling and reality that rural Ireland has begun a period of regeneration. “

With remote working a reality off the back of the necessities of the pandemic period and the quickening pace of Vodafone Ireland’s mobile and fibre broadband infrastructure expansion, more and more people are moving closer to loved ones and closer to where they want to call home.”

Meanwhile, Bord Gáis Energy’s Christmas commercial has a focus on service engineers, highlighting their year-round commitment.

The utility says that engineer teams are on call throughout the festive season, and this sacrifice is the theme of the 60-second ‘On Call’ commercial, developed by Folk Wunderman Thompson and Mindshare Ireland, who operate the account as ‘Team Nucleus’.

Dermot Mulligan, Head of Marketing at Bord Gáis Energy, commented: “Christmas is a time when this commitment is even more important, and we really wanted to celebrate the way our Service Engineers go above and beyond to deliver our commitment. We are always ‘imagining a better way’ to deliver a high level of service to our customers and this is an example of that.”