Michael Hill Makes Christmas Personal With a Boy Named Archie
Make their Christmas is a 2021 holiday film campaign created by CHE Proximity for jewelry retailer Michael Hill, launched in October 2021 across Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, using the story of a boy who handcrafts gifts for the people he loves to position jewelry as the ultimate expression of thought, effort, and care, according to Campaignbrief.
The campaign centres on a young boy named Archie who spends the weeks before Christmas making handmade gifts for his neighbours, his teacher, and a love interest, before his mother receives a Michael Hill diamond ring on Christmas morning. The narrative arc is deliberate: by showing Archie invest time and creativity in every gift he gives, the campaign embeds the brand's commercial offering inside a philosophy of meaningful giving rather than transactional purchase, according to Adnews. As stated in the campaign's own description, the core proposition holds that the most meaningful gift is one that comes with thought, effort, time, and love. Michael Hill positions itself as the destination where that sentiment finds its finest expression.
In Canada, the campaign ran across television, connected television, digital video, and out-of-home media, according to Media in Canada. The media plan was executed by OMD and Alpha Digital, as reported by Campaign Brief. The film was shot on location in Queenstown and directed by Noah Marshall, founder of production company Larchmont, per Campaign Brief, according to Campaignbrief. Music was drawn from Yazoo's Only You, a choice that layers nostalgic warmth over the visual storytelling. The campaign represents a conscious departure from Michael Hill's prior marketing approach, which, as reported by Ad News, had been heavily transactional and focused on retail activity rather than brand-led emotion. Make their Christmas signals a return to long-form narrative as the brand's primary creative register for the holiday season in the Canadian market and beyond, according to Mediaincanada.
Michael Hill's 2021 holiday strategy rests on a single consumer insight: Canadian holiday shoppers assign greater emotional value to gifts that visibly carry effort and intention. CHE Proximity translated this insight into a narrative genre campaign rather than a product-led promotional vehicle, positioning the brand against the transactional conventions that dominate the Fashion and Personal Accessories category at Christmas.
The strategic shift is contextually significant. As reported by Ad News, Michael Hill's advertising prior to 2021 leaned heavily on retail triggers and promotional messaging. The 2020 Christmas campaign, also produced by CHE Proximity and documented by Ad News and Bandt, had already begun moving toward emotional storytelling with its narrative of a mother who rediscovers her sparkle through a family gift. Make their Christmas extends and deepens that trajectory, committing more fully to character-driven film as the brand's signature mode. Morgan Watt, managing director at CHE Proximity, is cited by Branding in Asia as a key voice behind the campaign's positioning as a return to brand-led storytelling after years of ROI-focused marketing across the industry.
In the Canadian jewelry and personal accessories market, Michael Hill competes directly with retailers such as Peoples Jewellers and Birks, both of which maintain significant national presence and seasonal advertising spend. The decision to anchor the campaign in a universal emotional story rather than price or product differentiation gives Michael Hill a distinct identity at a moment when category communications tend toward sameness. Jo Feeney, Chief Marketing Officer at Michael Hill, articulated the strategic rationale as reported by Campaign Brief: at Michael Hill, marking the special moments in people's lives is at the heart of what the brand does, and there is a deliberate synergy between the care and craft in the advertisement and that which goes into creating a special piece of jewellery.
Noah Marshall directed Make their Christmas. Marshall, founder of production company Larchmont, shot the film on location in Queenstown, according to Campaign Brief. The choice of Queenstown provides a visually distinctive backdrop that avoids the generic snowbound aesthetics common to Northern Hemisphere holiday advertising, lending the film a particular visual character that feels both cinematic and intimate.
The creative execution is built around restraint. Rather than showcasing Michael Hill's product range in any conventional retail sense, the film follows Archie through a series of small, handmade gestures for the people in his life. The dramatic logic mirrors the brand's proposition: the value of a gift lies in what it costs the giver in time and feeling, not in its material price. When Archie's mother receives the Michael Hill diamond ring at the film's close, the product arrives as an emotional culmination of everything the narrative has established about the meaning of effort and love, rather than as a simple promotional reveal.
The soundtrack selection reinforces the tonal intent. Yazoo's Only You, as identified by Campaign Brief, carries considerable cultural resonance as a piece associated with tender, understated longing. Its deployment over the final moments of Archie's story amplifies the emotional register without overpowering the visual storytelling. Creative direction was led by Noah Marshall in his capacity as director, with Cristian Staal serving as Managing Partner, Creative at CHE Proximity, as documented by Campaign Brief. Staal is cited as central to the campaign's creative philosophy, which, per Branding in Asia, treated the capacity to create a true emotional connection as the campaign's primary measure of success. The combination of location, music, and narrative structure produces a film that operates as branded entertainment rather than advertising in the conventional sense.
Make their Christmas accumulates verifiable audience engagement across its documented distribution. The campaign film records approximately 992,000 views and 196 likes on its primary platform, as documented by Clapboard. While no independently verified sales uplift or brand tracking data for the Canadian market is publicly available, the viewership figure indicates meaningful organic reach for a regionally distributed holiday film operating without a major global media budget.
The campaign's structural effectiveness rests on several compounding factors. Its multi-market deployment across Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, per Campaign Brief, extends the return on production investment across three distinct territories. The media mix of television, connected television, digital video, and out-of-home, as reported by Media in Canada, ensures the film reaches both linear and streaming audiences during the high-intent holiday consideration window. The use of a universally legible emotional narrative — a child making gifts for people he loves — creates conditions for the content to travel beyond paid placement into organic sharing, which the view count partially reflects.
The campaign's positioning as a deliberate departure from transactional advertising, as framed by Ad News in the context of Michael Hill's broader marketing evolution, also carries strategic value that outlasts any single seasonal cycle. By re-establishing the brand's emotional register in Canada and its other key markets, Make their Christmas lays groundwork for cumulative brand equity rather than short-term sales conversion alone. Clapboard rates the campaign 61 out of 100, reflecting strong narrative craft and clear strategic intent, tempered by limited public evidence of measurable market impact in the Canadian context.
Make their Christmas is a 2021 holiday film campaign created by CHE Proximity for Michael Hill. It follows a boy named Archie who handcrafts gifts for the people he loves before his mother receives a Michael Hill diamond ring, positioning jewelry as the most meaningful expression of thought, effort, time, and care during Christmas.
CHE Proximity created Make their Christmas for Michael Hill. The agency produced the campaign in 2021 with Cristian Staal serving as Managing Partner, Creative, according to Campaign Brief. CHE Proximity also created Michael Hill's 2020 Christmas campaign, making this part of a sustained brand storytelling relationship between the two organisations.
The Make their Christmas film was shot in Queenstown, according to Campaign Brief. Director Noah Marshall, founder of production company Larchmont, chose the location for the campaign, which ran across Canada, Australia, and New Zealand in October 2021 using television, connected television, digital video, and out-of-home media channels.
Michael Hill's Make their Christmas campaign uses Yazoo's Only You as its soundtrack, per Campaign Brief. The track's association with understated emotional longing reinforces the film's narrative tone, accompanying the final moments of Archie's story as his mother receives a Michael Hill diamond ring on Christmas morning.
Make their Christmas recorded approximately 992,000 views on its primary platform, as documented by Clapboard. No independently verified sales or brand-tracking data for the Canadian market is publicly available. Clapboard rates the campaign 61 out of 100, reflecting strong creative execution and strategic narrative intent within the Fashion and Personal Accessories category.
Make their Christmas marks a deliberate shift away from heavily transactional advertising that Michael Hill had relied on before 2021, as reported by Ad News. The campaign commits to long-form emotional storytelling, following a creative direction established in the 2020 Christmas campaign and extended further through the character-driven narrative of a boy named Archie.
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