How Orange Turned a Connected Home Into a Santa Trap for Christmas 2019
Orange's "Got Him" is a 60-second Christmas film released in France on 14 November 2019, created by Publicis Conseil, in which a neighbourhood of children use Connected House technology to attempt to capture the real Santa Claus, positioning Orange's smart home offer as the engine behind an impossible childhood dream.
The campaign, also referenced as "We Got Him" and hashtagged #AttrapezNoël (Catch Christmas), launched during one of French television's highest-profile live broadcast moments: the halftime interval of the France–Moldova football match. That placement guaranteed a mass simultaneous audience at the precise opening of the holiday gifting season. Orange's strategic intent was to anchor its Connected House service not to a technical specification but to a universal emotional proposition — the idea that the right technology can make magic tangible.
In France, the campaign extended well beyond the 60-second film. Print, digital, social media, in-store activations across Orange retail locations, Ligue 1 stadium integrations, and special operations all carried the #AttrapezNoël mission outward, designed to make catching Santa a national conversation rather than a passive viewing experience. The campaign was developed by Publicis Conseil, Paris, under the creative presidency of Marco Venturelli, according to reporting by Little Black Book Online. Jeff Low directed the film, with Marcel Zyskind serving as Director of Photography, as documented by Shoot Online. The Clapboard Score for "Got Him" is 70 out of 100, reflecting a campaign that executes a crowd-pleasing creative concept with strong media strategy and multichannel discipline.
Orange held 40.1% of French broadband customers at the end of 2019, according to France's telecoms regulator ARCEP, making it the dominant force in a market concentrated among four main operators that together accounted for more than 99% of broadband subscribers in France, per the same ARCEP data. That market position creates a specific strategic challenge: leadership brands cannot simply compete on price or coverage — they must compete on cultural relevance and perceived value of ecosystem services.
The Connected House offer was Orange's answer to the commoditisation of basic connectivity. Rather than advertising speeds or price plans, Publicis Conseil built the campaign around a narrative in which smart home technology — cameras, sensors, and coordinated connected devices — becomes the instrument of childhood wonder. The brief, as reported by Little Black Book Online, centred on the theme of enabling something that no generation before had managed: catching Santa Claus in the act. This is a textbook example of benefit-led storytelling, where a product's functional capability is translated into an emotionally resonant scenario.
In the French telecommunications landscape, Orange faces sustained competition from Bouygues Telecom and SFR, both of which also operate connected home product lines. Positioning the Connected House as the technology of Christmas magic — rather than of home security or broadband bundling — allowed Orange to claim a distinct emotional register that neither competitor occupied during the 2019 holiday season. The campaign's release strategy, timed to the France–Moldova match halftime and subsequently extended across Ligue 1 stadium environments, embedded the brand within the shared cultural rhythms of French life at precisely the moment French households begin forming holiday purchase intent.
Jeff Low directed "Got Him" for Orange and Publicis Conseil. Low's direction structures the film as a heist narrative transposed into a domestic holiday setting, casting children and teenagers from the same neighbourhood as the operational crew of a covert surveillance mission. The tone — earnest, kinetic, and laced with genuine wit — avoids the saccharine register that dominates much Christmas advertising and instead borrows energy from ensemble action cinema.
Marcel Zyskind served as Director of Photography on the film, as documented by Shoot Online. Zyskind's cinematography gives the spot a visual texture that sits between the warmth of family holiday films and the purposeful visual grammar of a thriller, a combination that sustains the conceit of children operating a serious intelligence mission without undercutting the joy of the premise. The production was handled by La Pac, as recorded by marcommnews.com and bestadsontv.com.
The creative team at Publicis Conseil included Creative Director Fabrice Delacourt, Copywriter Marc Rosier, and Art Director Jean-Marc Tramoni, with strategy led by Damien Sabatier, according to documentation cited by wearecom.fr and shootonline.com. Marie Wallet and Claudia Weiss are also credited in the production, reflecting the collaborative structure Publicis Conseil brought to a campaign that required coordination across film, retail, digital, social, and stadium environments simultaneously. The musical dimension was handled through a punk-mode re-orchestration of Jingle Bells, commissioned specifically by Orange for the film, which reinforced the campaign's anti-conventional energy without abandoning the Christmas signalling that the season demands.
No independently verified third-party performance metrics for the "Got Him" campaign — such as brand lift figures, reach numbers, or sales uplift data — are publicly available at the time of writing. What the available record does confirm, as reported by marcommnews.com and Little Black Book Online, is that the film achieved broadcast placement during the halftime of the France–Moldova football match on 14 November 2019, one of French television's highest-audience live moments of that calendar window, and that the campaign ran simultaneously across cinema, Ligue 1 stadia, digital platforms, social media, Orange retail stores, and print.
Structurally, the campaign demonstrates several markers of effectiveness. The #AttrapezNoël hashtag gave the campaign a participatory social layer, inviting French audiences to engage with the Santa-capture premise beyond passive viewing. The multichannel deployment — from national television to physical retail environments to stadium hoardings — ensured that the Connected House message reached consumers at multiple points of the purchase journey during the highest-spending season of the French retail calendar. The choice of a 60-second format, rather than the shorter formats that dominate digital advertising, gave the heist narrative sufficient space to establish character, build tension, and deliver emotional resolution.
Orange's commanding position in the French broadband market, with 40.1% customer share per ARCEP, means that campaigns of this scale function as much as brand equity investments as direct-response tools. The Clapboard Score of 70 out of 100 reflects a campaign that succeeds in creative ambition and media strategy while leaving some room in the measurement and cultural penetration dimensions.
Orange's "Got Him" is a 60-second Christmas film from France, created by Publicis Conseil in 2019. It follows a neighbourhood of children using Orange's Connected House technology to attempt to catch Santa Claus, positioning smart home devices as the engine behind an impossible childhood dream during the holiday gifting season.
Jeff Low directed the Orange "Got Him" film for Publicis Conseil. Marcel Zyskind served as Director of Photography, with production handled by La Pac. The creative team included Creative Director Fabrice Delacourt, Copywriter Marc Rosier, and Art Director Jean-Marc Tramoni at Publicis Conseil, Paris, as documented by wearecom.fr and shootonline.com.
Orange first broadcast "Got Him" in France on 14 November 2019. The campaign launched during the halftime interval of the France–Moldova football match, securing one of French television's largest simultaneous live audiences at the opening of the holiday season, before extending across cinema, Ligue 1 stadiums, digital, and retail channels.
"Got Him" advertises Orange's Connected House service. The campaign translates the product's smart home capabilities — connected cameras, sensors, and coordinated devices — into a narrative where children use the technology to surveil and capture Santa Claus, making the functional offer emotionally legible to a broad French holiday audience.
Publicis Conseil, Paris, created "Got Him" for Orange. The campaign was developed under the creative presidency of Marco Venturelli, according to Little Black Book Online. Publicis Conseil has produced multiple campaigns for Orange in France, including subsequent work on the brand's 5G and SaferPhone campaigns, as documented by publicisconseil.fr.
Orange's "Got Him" campaign holds a Clapboard Score of 70 out of 100. The score reflects strong creative ambition and a well-structured multichannel media strategy across television, cinema, digital, and retail in France, while indicating measured room for improvement in verified performance outcomes and broader cultural penetration metrics.
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