Amazon brings back its nostalgic 'Joy Ride' ad from 2023 this Christmas

Amazon is back with its new holiday ad, and by that, we mean Amazon has brought back its popular 2023 Christmas campaign. Titled 'Joy Ride,' the relaunched ad is a part of the e-commerce brand's ‘Everything For Every Holiday’ campaign. 

The ad demonstrates how the brand is shifting its holiday messaging from pure transactional convenience of online shopping to facilitating shared emotional moments offline. The ad avoids grand spectacles, instead focusing on a simple, relatable human need: the lifelong desire for companionship and youthful spontaneity.

The narrative begins with three elderly, lifelong friends gathered on a park bench while it snows. Their wistful observation of children sledging is the emotional hook. The turning point, however, is a mundane action: one friend uses the Amazon app to purchase simple padded seat cushions, the brand barely visible on the screen for three seconds.

This little purchase is the catalyst for the entire emotional payoff, when the seat cushions enable the elderly ladies to sledge just like the children in the park. The ad then throws back to the women sledging as little girls. 

Dubbed "the company’s most successful Christmas campaign to date," by Amazon, the ad effectively positions Amazon's core service, speedy delivery, not as a technological feat, but as the unobtrusive enabler of a simple act of shared joy.

Another critical component of the campaign is the choice of background score: an instrumental cover of The Beatles' “In My Life.” This soundtrack provides a layer of nostalgia and emotional depth without explicit brand reference. By using this established cultural touchstone, Amazon efficiently ties its functional utility to themes of enduring friendship and treasured history.

Fun Fact: This rendition of "In My Life" was developed exclusively for the campaign. It was recorded live with a 40-piece orchestra in Prague.

Furthermore, the narrative also pushes back against stereotypical portrayals of the elderly in advertising. As one of the lead actresses, Annie O'Donnell, pointed out, the campaign offered an opportunity to "shake off preconceptions," focusing on active participation rather than just passive sentimentality. This decision strategically broadens the ad’s appeal and makes the core message, that Amazon helps you participate in life, more inclusive.

Back in 2023, Maya Waterman, the lead character of Joy Ride, told Amazon, “Nostalgia in older age can often be framed as something overly sentimental that you yearn for, so I feel immensely proud that we were able to flip that narrative on its head and tell a story of three women who don’t just relive memories, but make new ones. I hope audiences of all ages relate to that feeling of shared joy.”

Annie O’Donnell, one of Maya’s lifelong friends in the story, also went on record saying, “At our age, it’s not uncommon to be typecast. And, while I will happily play the role of someone’s sweet grandmother, it is always exciting to be able to show a different side. An opportunity to shake off preconceptions and show we are not just ‘young at heart’ but still throwing ourselves into life."

'Joy Ride' feels like a strategic move to humanise the large e-commerce platform by showing how its functional efficiency can serve as the invisible backbone for authentic, valuable, and shared holiday experiences.