Duffy & Shanley holiday card goes viral

PROVIDENCE – For marketing firms, creating an annual Christmas card is a major project, challenging the firms to come up with a new twist on an age-old concept.

But this year, instead of creating a standard card, Duffy & Shanley decided to lampoon the entire holiday-card enterprise in a Web video using software from Montreal-based Xtranormal Technology Inc., which takes text and turns it into an animated movie.

“We dread doing the holiday card,” Michael Silvia, Duffy & Shanley’s creative director, said in an e-mail. “It’s upon us before we know it, and there’s the pressure of having to actually make it great. Plus, with the way our industry’s going – and the fact that nobody needs more paper in their lives – we figured it shouldn't even be a card.”

The firm’s card has made a splash, garnering coverage in the advertising trade press and winning kudos from others in the world of marketing.

“The employees skewer industry trends like crowd-sourcing and struggle, Gap-like, with the proper holiday greeting,” wrote David Gianatasio of Adweek, the weekly trade magazine. “It goes on so long, and with such stifling stupidity, it’s kind of mesmerizing.”

The site AdRants also highlighted the card, and it has been the subject of quite a few tweets on Twitter.

Silvia said Duffy & Shanley welcomed the publicity. “There are a lot of great agencies in the world sending out ‘cards’ this time of year, and when you see tweets saying that ours is the best, well, Merry Christmas,” he said. “Or Happy Hanukkah.”

Additional information is available at duffyshanley.com.