Walgreens Holiday Card Promo Video

Client: DNP with Walgreens

Brandartica Role: Creative Direction, Concept, Story, Stakeholder Management, Strategy

Production Partner: Anchorline (Production + Post)

Timeline: 4 weeks from signoff to final delivery

The Result

Walgreens credited the 2025 campaign offer & video with:

• Almost 5X increase in sales over December 2024 promotion
• Expanded reach via a Walgreens email placement and the Walgreens YouTube channel

The Challenge

DNP asked Brandartica to develop a holiday promo video for Walgreens under tight constraints:
Fast turnaround without “rushed” quality

• National audience (needed to be broadly relatable and inclusive)
• Multiple stakeholder groups and approvals across DNP America, DNP HQ Japan, and Walgreens Corporate
• Required multiple versions and formats for email, social, and short-form placements

We were all looking for speed, polish, corporate alignment, and performance.

Strategy

We treated this project like a conversion asset, not a “holiday vibe video.”

Our approach:

1. Lock in the story early: Concept & storyboards before production to prevent expensive drift later.
2. Build inclusivity into the idea itself instead of treating it like a last-minute checkbox.
3. Design deliverables as a system (masters + cutdowns + channel formats) so the content could travel and perform everywhere Walgreens needed it.

Creative Concept

The spot uses a universal emotional moment—family change—to make the holiday feel expansive, not tied to one tradition.

On-screen narrative:
A Latina woman (55+) sits on the living room floor wrapping presents beside a lit fireplace. Soft internal voiceover reflects on how the holidays feel different now that the kids are grown and moved away. Her husband enters with the mail. She discards junk until one envelope catches her eye. She opens it and breaks into tears of joy. Her husband rushes to her side. Over their shoulders, we see it: a holiday card that’s also a birth announcement. They’re going to be grandparents.

Why this worked:
It’s emotionally specific, culturally real, and universally understandable. It uses holiday storytelling that isn’t “Christmas-only,” and doesn’t alienate a national audience.

Process and Collaboration

Brandartica and Anchorline creative leads met multiple times to workshop story challenges and execution details to solve problems before cameras rolled.

Stakeholder alignment:
Managed review and approval rounds across:

• DNP America
• DNP Headquarters (Japan)
• Walgreens Corporate

Real-time decision-making:
Key stakeholders who couldn’t attend the shoot were brought in via FaceTime during production to approve:

• product placement details
• additional angles/coverage
• actor cues and performance adjustments

This kept production moving and reduced delays and revision cycles after the shoot.

Deliverables

We delivered a full content package built for performance across various channels:

• A/B versions (exclusive use for Walgreens and DNP)
• Email-embedded version (optimized for placement within Walgreens email)
• Social formats (platform-ready)
• Short-form cutdowns for Stories, Reels, and TikTok

Post-production included color correction, VFX, original music composition, and voice talent.

Conclusion

This project is a clean example of Brandartica’s creative and execution advantage under pressure showing:

• Speed without creative degradation
• High-stakes stakeholder management across global & corporate teams
• Story-first creative that stays inclusive and national-ready
• Asset-system thinking (not “one video,” but a complete rollout kit)
• Measurable performance impact tied to the offer