The idea for this 2024 Christmas advert collection was two-fold. Collect and reflect on the European ad industries most creative period of work, which tends to happen at this time of the year. In advertising at this time of the year, we’re usually head-down getting things done until the middle of December, so it made sense to pull it all together.
Aldi
Aldi do Christmas adverts right. I don’t mean the the creative is amazing, but they get basics right. It builds on previous campaigns linked by Kevin the Carrot. It has engaging storytelling. It’s the communications strategists Christmas ad rather than the height of creative excellence. Consistency, fluent objects stacking up its brand building power to reinforce memory structures about what Aldi is at Christmas.
Amazon
Amazon’s Midnight Opus was designed to be used in the US as well as Europe so it has more of a ‘holidays’ than Christmas vibe to it. But the emotional storytelling is top-notch.
ASDA
If Aldi is the communications strategist’s Christmas ad, ASDA’s is the copy-based creative’s Christmas ad. It’s based on the kind of wordplay that fuelled the likes of the comparethemarket meerkat.
Barbour
Leaning into Barbour’s favoured status with the rural set in the UK, the Shaun the Sheep collaboration makes perfect sense.
https://youtu.be/8XS_SG76kQ0?si=xzSFyCeIE9aSk4Gw
Boots
Boots 2024 advert was something I had only ever seen in a cut down 15 or 30 second spot centred around ‘slaying’ scene in the advert. In totality it made a lot more sense and was based on some nice insights. The advert implies that Boots is expecting to be the destination for last-minute present shopping – which puts it in an interesting cross-segment competitive space alongside the local off-licence as much as department store beauty counters.
Christian Dior
Christian Dior’s Ball of Dreams is as visually opulent as you’d expect from the luxury brand. Its vibe is very similar to the 2022 Christmas Christian Dior advert The Atelier of Dreams implying a certain amount of campaign consistency. While I won’t swing around on a chandelier I do like Dior’s Eau Sauvage.
Disney
Disney’s 2024 Christmas advert focuses on the brand’s core strength of storytelling. It manages to make the customer the hero, rather than leaning more heavily on its IP library too much.
JD Sports
JD Sports would find it hard to top last years Christmas ad that tapped into something deep in a working class Christmas. This year’s version is more like a fever dream of vignettes, definitely relatable but not the joyful apex of last years effort.
They are tapping into similar ideas about family that Tesco did, but taking it in a very different direction. It also represents a vision of an ‘imperfect’ Christmas, rather than the usual ideal.
John Lewis
John Lewis has high expectations on their adverts. Their 2024 Christmas advert ‘The Gifting Hour’ captures the generosity and self-imposed stress of giving.
Lidl
Lidl’s 2024 Christmas advert A Magical Christmas has a nice twist on the Christmas ad with it leaning into Lid’s Toy Bank to help local communities. It looks like they did a pan-European ad to give it a Christmas card feel.
M&S Christmas Food
M&S keep consistent in their ‘this isn’t just food, it’s M&S Christmas food’ in their voice over harking back to when Nigella Lawson used to do their intros. This is more interesting in production than the vintage food porn M&S historically used.
Morrisons
Morrisons uses oven gloves as fluent objects, but the benefits would only be appreciated if it is repeated as a creative motif in future campaigns a la Aldi’s Kevin the Carrott. As an ad it could have been screened anytime in the past forty years and not stood out, its curiously atemporal in nature.
Sainsburys
Sainsbury’s draws on the intellectual property rights of Roald Dahl’s books with an appearance of The BFG. It’s a big production but could it have worked harder creatively?
Shelter
Homeless charity Shelter moved beyond the usual poverty porn of NGOs in their World of Their Own film and humanises their clients. The creative and storytelling are both on point. If this doesn’t win awards next year; it’s probably only because they didn’t enter.
Tesco
#FeedYourChristmasSpirit is a solid highly emotive Christmas ad. It challenges what many younger British people feel about family such as tightly knit house share friends like the 1990s era show This Life and its American counterpart Friends.
Tesco pulls it back to traditional familial ties and memorable moments that home baking creates.
Vodafone UK
Vodafone makes an interesting play on its heritage to differentiate itself from the likes of Three, EE, and the mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs). From a brand perspective, it’s the last network standing. Creatively, they’ve done a good job of incorporating emotion, which has led to strong performance in System 1 testing.
Interesting that they didn’t have a Roman Kemp-fronted advert, which would have been more consistent with the rest of the creative that they’ve ran this year.
The cynic in me suspects that this ad could also be a way for the marketing team to pre-position themselves ahead of political manoeuvring for roles, should Vodafone UK and Three UK merge. This would likely be a first step in enabling their owners to exit the UK’s low-growth, financially challenging market.
Waitrose
Waitrose put a greater focus on the product with its dramatisation of ‘Sweet Suspicion’ a minor Enid Blyton-esque mystery. Clever, but is it emotionally engaging?
Honourable mentions
Aldi Australia
Aldi Australia offers a very localised perspective of the Christmas experience. Part work-of-art; part comedy.
Deutsche Telekom
Deutche Telekom looks at the higher calling of telecoms rather than the way its knit into our daily lives with its 2024 Christmas advert. The production is beautiful. It’s a direction that Three or Vodafone could have taken given their global footprint, but Deutsche Telekom manage to carry it off.
McDonald’s Philippines
This 2024 Christmas ad for the Filipino part of McDonald’s features the local chairman George Yang and Jose Mari Chan – a well-known singer-songwriter. The tonality and twist in the tale are so well done.
Cheddar put together an interesting study into popular Christmas songs. I really like that Cheddar put their sources including The Wall Street Journal and other news sources. I’d love to see more people do this on YouTube videos. The start of popular Christmas songs took off with recording music and the move away from religious music to a more secular family festival celebrated in America.
As the clock ticked down to Brexit finally happening, I watched the late Darcus Howe’s three part series White Tribe using the All4 service. Looking back two decades, you could see effects of the Thatcher administration which accelerated the decline of the British industrial heartland without thinking about what came next beyond shopping malls, loft apartments and garden festivals. The schism in society that fuelled Brexit was readily apparent. The void of what being English meant, was again apparent during the head-scratching paean to the NHS that was the London Olympics opening ceremony. What I thought was most remarkable is that White Tribe is very consistent with what I saw in John Harris’ series for the Guardian Anywhere but Westminster. All of it in retrospectYou can watch the full series of White Tribehere.
In common with other organisations from design agencies to the Irish government’s department of foreign affairs; Japanese airline ANA celebrated Christmas with a content focus this year DO: Bring Japanese Christmas Home ‘Tis the season… – ANA. The content is unusual as it focuses on secular Japanese Christmas traditions including Christmas songs. More Japan related content here.
Creative agency Endeavour sent out the first Christmas card that I received. This year they focused on content rather than design with everything that you need Christmas 2020 – Endeavour.
There was guidance on how to make paper Christmas trees including a green PDF that you can print out if you don’t like the snow white look of unprinted paper and a Spotify playlist.
The Financial Times have put together a series article looking atThe Future of the City. The City in question being the London’s international financial services sector, whose traditional home is the City of London – think Wall Street in New York, or Central in Hong Kong. I found How London grew into a financial powerhouseparticularly informative and all the articles are chock full of charts.
A relatively modern Carroll family Christmas tradition has been my Dad and I watching the BBC adaptations of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley’s People. It will carry extra weight this year due to social distancing and the recent death of John Le Carre. My Dad read his books whilst working shifts during the late 1960s and early 1970s. He used to buy books second hand from a florrid looking book dealer in the local market. I in turn, read my Dad’s books (Len Deighton, Alistair Maclean, Hammond Innes, Robert Ludlum and John Le Carre) as I went through the early years of secondary school. Le Carre was the only one of these authors that I decided to read more than once.
This time, we’ll both be watching them on Blu-Ray whilst keeping the video open on FaceTime to discuss it as we go along.
It doesn’t get more 1990s than this. A skateboarder reading his self-authored poetry. Mike Vallely a professional skateboarder. If my memory serves me right, Vallely rode for Powell Peralta (Bones Brigade) factory team a few separate times during his career. In this video he gives the poetry reading in a LA skate shop back in 1996.
https://youtu.be/QTr2Mvz873c
The Luxury Society held a panel in Shanghai talking about luxury brands and the digital behaviour of the Chinese consumer. More luxury related content here.
Chinese new year CNY 2026 also known as lunar new year, spring festival or Tết festival. 2026 marks the year of the fire horse. In the same way that the Super Bowl and Christmas are the stand out times of the year for advertising in the US and Europe, CNY 2026 will be the same for much of east Asia and Southeast Asia.
There has a large amount of tradition and rituals around celebrating the festival, which are rich seams of inspiration for strategists and marketing moments.
I featured an advert from Brunei for the first time.
As with previous years, Malaysia had a lot of campaigns running, many of which were partnerships with local musicians to collaborate on a seasonal song. One of the advantages of partnering with local musicians is their ability to cross post on their own channels broadening the videos reach.
In the Malaysian adverts that were storyteller driven, coping with aging relatives suffering with dementia came through as a common social theme.
Social video has been a great leveller. I have a featured a few videos from small businesses this year which were nicely executed despite operating with minimal budgets.
Coca-Cola in China was notable in that it showed strategic thinking closer to what we now see in the west with social-first ‘Instagrammable’ tactics.
Australia
Godiva
Anywhere up to 8 percent of Australia’s population have some connection to China, which explains why Godiva have done a Chinese new year themed range of chocolates.
Brunei
Flower Journal
Flower Journal is a florist shop based in Brunei, yet they have created a cinematic advert with great storytelling. The craft is arguably better than a number of the big brands featured this year. The work by local agency Cinekota really impressed me.
China
Adidas
Adidas made a film about a school football team and focuses on how the team is a ‘football family’. Reuniting with family is an important part of lunar new year. It’s also about looking forward to the future, hence the children’s wishes.
Apple
TBWA\ Media Arts, Shanghai teamed up with film director Bai Xue for Apple’s CNY 2026 advertisement. The film joins Apple’s series of ‘shot on an iPhone‘ mini movies.
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola China took a social and experiential approach focused around togetherness. A drone show in Chongqing paired with fireworks that are considered part of China’s intangible cultural heritage was supported by social video clips of a famous father and daughter.
All of this was to address young adults dual sense of togetherness during spring festival as mainland Chinese call CNY 2026. Being together with friends a la Friends and This Life, as well as more traditional family connections.
Valentino
Valentino put relatively subtle lunar new year symbols into a Chinese take on an American diner. The galloping horse zoetrope and red accents throughout the restaurant from neon signs to red floor tiles. As for the film itself, it’s basically a video lookbook.
Hong Kong
Hang Seng Bank
Hang Seng Bank ties into the the importance of welcoming good fortune into your life at Chinese New Year. Celebrities dress as the god of good fortune giving wishes for flourishing prosperity to different neighbourhoods across Hong Kong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqYWpeDrtZ8
Malaysia
AEON
Japanese supermarket chain AEON did a Malaysian market specific film featuring a mix of well known entertainers. The giddy up line telegraphing its horse related theme and the cultural impact of K-pop is evident in the whole video.
Affin Bank
Affin Bank is consistent in their lunar new year campaigns. Each year they tell of how a famous business customer battled adversity to succeed. This time it was Malaysian book retailer BookXcess.
Affinity
Affinity is a Malaysian estate agent. The video creative is a pretty run of the mill reenactment of Chinese new year with the horse head mask hinting at the CNY 2026 theme. The song itself is a bit an ear worm.
Air Selangor
Air Selangor hits you with a gut punch of an emotional Chinese New Year story that felt like it came straight of the Thai advertising agencies rather than Malaysia. (Thai agencies are famous for wringing you through an emotional shredder leaving you drained after an insurance ad).
Alpro
Malaysia’s largest prescription pharmacy chain put together a humorous new year film based around the mechanic of three wishes.
AmBank
The film melds together traditions around fabric sharing and lion dance to tell a Chinese new year story of a community coming together.
Astro
Astro is a Malaysian holding company that has a mix of linear TV, connected TV and radio assets. Think the reach of the BBC, but a private enterprise.
Bamboo Green Florist
Bamboo Green Florist is a single shop business based in Penang. For a small business their Chinese new year advert punches above its weight.
Coca-Cola
The first of two appearances in this list by Malaysian group 3P.
GVRide
GVRide is a Malaysian ride hailing app, they sponsored a new year song music video by Namewee alongside other brands.
IJM Land
IJM Land is a Malaysian property developer (part of a larger conglomerate). They position themselves as “one of Malaysia’s property development”. The film sits at the tension between the love of heritage, accumulating wealth and the non-monetary aspects of CNY 2026 – coming together, family, building memories and legacy.
JinYeYe
JinYeYe sell seasonal hampers, so lunar new year is their peak sales time. Their advert is targeted at the global Chinese diaspora and they partnered with Tourism Malaysia alongside local musicians. A bee is considered to a symbol of blessings and represents sweetness, hope and companionship.
https://youtu.be/0YvLVF4TJAE?si=sn4nMWPwykr7WzjM
Lee Kum Kee
Hong Kong’s Lee Kum Lee were the inventors of oyster sauce and have a place in every Asian kitchen cupboard. But their advert is weak sauce (pun intended) that could have been knocked out on PowerPoint.
Listerine
Listerine just straight up sponsored the video of Malaysian producers 1119 for this new year themed music video.
Loong Kee
Loong Kee is a Malaysian food company who makes everything from processed meats to baked goods. This is at least the third year that they have partnered with local musicians who are internet-famous to collaborate on a new year themed song.
Lotus
Lotus supermarket was formerly part of Tesco’s international footprint before the UK brand divested itself of its international stores to Thai conglomerate Charoen Pokphand (CP) Group. This advert taps into family friction and a couple of nice wushu cinema referencing touches. It reminded me a lot of SingTel’s films from previous years.
It handles the diversity of Malaysia well, without the awkward approach that Malaysian Airlines went for.
Malaysian Airlines
Malaysian Airlines focuses on Malaysians coming home. Given that the airline is a government company. While ethically Chinese, and speaking Chinese at home – the woman is a devote muslim.
In reality that’s about 1-2% of the ethnic Chinese population – for ethno-political, social and cultural reasons that I don’t want to get into on this post. The video is as much about a government approved theme as it is about the airline.
Marrybrown
Marrybrown is a Malaysian quick service restaurant. It is really nice how the story moves through time with relatively small but important cues on screen.
Maxis
Malaysian broadband provider took an unusual angle bringing together two erstwhile business rivals in a spirit of shared community.
McDonalds Malaysia
Great storytelling but with a serious topic as middle-aged siblings deal with an aging parent with signs of dementia.
Nescafé Gold
Instant coffee brand Nescafé Gold goes down the sponsored music video route. But with a few noticeable differences:
Better product placement that articulates the customer moment.
A more diverse cast than most of the other adverts.
The video title Gongxi Kemeriahan – is a mix of mandarin and malay – gongxi meaning best wishes or congratulations and kemeriahan means excitement.
All of which are likely to because of Nestlé being a western multinational and the marketers are looking to target all Malaysians rather than just ethnic Chinese.
PMG Healthcare
PMG Healthcare is a regional provider of pharmacies, medical and dental clinics to private health insurance customers.
Mr Potato
Mr Potato is a local potato chip brand in Malaysia. Their CNY 2026 advert is a spoof of the Jackie Chan kung fu film Drunken Master.
Public Bank
Public Bank is a Malaysian headquartered bank. This year they have done an AR-based activation. Each Chinese new year you can go into your bank and get a pack of red envelopes and crisp new bills to give out to family, friends and junior colleagues. So this execution makes sense.
RHB
Malaysian bank RHB continued its theme of inspiring stories told in previous Chinese New Year campaigns through to its CNY 2026 campaign. This year tells the story of Komuniti Tukang Jahit, a small tailors shop that empowers women through sewing skills and fair income opportunities.
Setia
Malaysian house builder Setia takes a lighter comedic approach telling the story of a family’s new year celebration through the eyes of its youngest member. Its lightness of tone is in contrast to other adverts this year which are more of an emotional rollercoaster.
Shopee
Singaporean e-commerce platform Shopee partnered with local act 3P to a Chinese New Year song for its Malaysian ad campaign. Thoughout Asia lunar new year songs and playlists are all over TV, films, Spotify and YouTube playlists. This leans right into that trend.
SPD Racing
SPD Racing is a small workshop that service motorcycles and sell after market parts. This short video is really nicely executed, replacing parts on the motorcycle with red fittings in the same way that people would wear new red outfits on Chinese new year for good luck.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1x7RpOLHcTA
Tenaga
Tenaga is a Malaysian electrical utility. There is a nice bit of storytelling about a lion dance troupe. This could be rerun in future years given its lack of specificity to CNY 2026.
U Mobile
U Mobile is a Malaysian wireless operator. Their advert focuses on on the travel use case over lunar new year as more people travel rather than staying at home.
UCSI University
USCI is part of Malaysia’s private education system that sprang out of the positive discrimination of successive Malaysian governments towards Malays in comparison to Chinese and South Asian Malaysians. This was enshrined in article 153 of the Malaysian constitution, New Economic Policy, National Development Policy, National Vision Policy and the concept of Ketuanan Melayu which continues to be a pillar of government decision-making.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILuFokNxHck
In common with several other films here this year it focuses on the treasure of memories built over the festival and also has a dementia plot line.
Vida C
Vida C is kind of like an energy drink, in a number of Asian countries high vitamin C content is used in the same way that taurine and caffeine are in western energy drinks. They did a relatively subtle product placement in this comedic music video. It’s much less PC than western multinationals would allow.
Watsons
Watson’s is the Boots of Asia. Like previous years it tells a story of family coming together with the joy and chaos that usually ensues. It features Maria Cordero – a Macau born entertainer, radio and TV personality with a famous cooking show based in Hong Kong – but known throughout the region.
Singapore
Carlsberg
Carlsberg launched a pan-Asian campaign with a mix of horse themed packaging design and having it promoted by SKAI ISYOURGOD – a popular Malaysian rapper with appeal across Asia.
FairPrice
Singapore supermarket chain FairPrice focused on the small family moments of the new year celebrations and their ability to build lasting memories. The advert was created by TBWA\ Singapore.
Grab
At first I thought that this ad was aimed at the Malaysian market, but I think it’s aimed at both Singapore and Malaysia. It would work in either, even though some of the brands are Malaysia only like JayaGrocer. It’s unusual because of the amount of brand collabs in it, count them:
Vinda tissues
7Up
GXBank
Jasmine SunWhite Rice
JayaGrocer
Kyochon Chicken
Oriental Kopi
Subway
Secondly, there was the filming of an ad within the ad concept that Orson Welles would have enjoyed.
LVMH
LVMH’s drinks portfolio has been suffering from declining sales. Family get togethers are an ideal consumption moment, so it makes sense that Hennessy leant in with special packaging and a Singapore family reunion ‘kit’.
SIMBA
Australian owned mobile network SIMBA did a very simple sales promotion which is very much in keeping with its value proposition , but the horses are nicely done.
Singapore government
A comedic short film with relatively light social engineering aiming at harmonious relationships and community during CNY 2026. The family were framed as being salt-of-the-earth Singaporean Chinese living in old HDB flat. The universal food photography was very on point.
Taiwan
Coca-Cola
Coke did a really simple sales promotion with a giveaway competition attached to each purchase.
United States
Panda Express
Panda Express is an American fast food chain that specialises in American Chinese food. It kind of sits outside usual lunar new year traditions becoming a Roald Dahl style fantasy.
Vietnam
Coca-Cola
Really simple creative by Coca-Cola. They missed a trick by not creating something as iconic as the US Coca-Cola truck adverts. Instead they phoned in the creative with this spot.
Ensure Gold
Abbott Health’s Ensure Gold is a Complan-type drink designed to fortify health and restore strength. The film uses family union traditions to focus on the past, recover during the Tết festival and look to the future with a shared sense of resilience. The theme is even reflected when the family does traditional ancestor worship and we hear the wishes of their departed family.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdSib8exz6I
Home Credit
Home Credit are an online financial services company. They provide credit cards, vehicle loans, pre-payment accounts and instalment payments for consumer products. The advert focuses on everyday people and how they prepare for Tết, including decorating the home, getting new clothes and a new karaoke machine for the family gathering.
Mirinda
Mirinda is a Vietnamese soft drinks brand similar to Tango. Their adverts were noticeable for their shortness. They were running 3 five-second spots and two 15-second spots. No real story, but there is energy, brand colours feature heavily and it gives off a joyous vibe.
MyKingdom
MyKingdom is a Vietnamese toy retailer similar to Toys R Us. Their mobile first content focuses on the challenges of parents looking to buy toys that will last longer than the spring festival.
Sunhouse is a home electronics brand. Everything from kitchen appliances to to cookware.
In the advert, they focus on starting the new year healthy, there is a belief in starting the new year as you would like it to go on.
Viettel
Wireless carrier Viettel subverts the idea of a family reunion storyline during Tết. Instead when the family can’t come home, an uncle visits his family members around the country.
As I find more CNY 2026 campaigns I will add them here.
The idea of forgettable cinema came to me while reading Matthew Frank’s newsletter for The Ankler where he repeated a thought exercise that one of his colleagues posed.
Name five films of this decade that will go down as classics.
Okay, I’m waiting.
…still waiting.
I consume cinema the way members of Soho House were famed for consuming gak. Also given my movie tastes, you may disagree with what I think of as classics.
My answer would be:
Sinners – vampires in 1920s America amidst a slice of pre-civil rights life in the deep South
The Boy and the Heron aka (How do you live?) – A Studio Ghibli film, like everything from Studio Ghibli it’s a masterpiece. Just watch it in Japanese with English subtitles as the English dub is awful.
The Order – Jude Law as an FBI field agent in 1970s American Mid-West hunting white supremacists.
The Goldfinger – A retelling of a financial scandal in Hong Kong’s go-go era of the 1970s and 1980s. It draws on the story of the Carrian Group which went belly up in the midst of a corruption and fraud scandal. It saw a bank auditor killed and buried in a banana tree grove. Lawyer John Wimbush was found dead in his home swimming pool. A nylon rope around his neck tethered to a concrete manhole cover at the bottom of the pool. The names had to be changed for legal reasons as the main protagonist George Tan was still alive when the film went into production.
The Old Woman with the Knife – A film adaptation of a Korean novel about a skilled female assassin coming up to pensionable age. It is a thriller that also addresses an aging Korean society and the invisibility of older people.
Bonus
Oppenheimer – Robert Oppenheimer biopic by Christopher Nolan that is visually amazing and does some interesting things with the storytelling.
But the point of the thought experiment was the most films now are forgettable cinema and most normal people would have struggled to name five future classic films.
They are watched by millions – yet never become part of culture. This idea of forgettable cinema used to be a novel idea with only the occasional blockbuster; notably the Avatar series, falling into this category.
Now Matthew Frank argues that forgettable cinema applies across all film making output. He described the phenomenon as ‘Cinemanesia’.
Why do we have forgotten cinema?
The problem might not be the films or the film making, but the change to discover and rediscover films. Frank posits that this is down to the way we now consume media.
Pre-Netflix, we had:
Repeat showings at the cinema, the most prominent example of this for Londoners would be the ‘sing-a-long’ screenings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
There is comfort and familiarity in their repetition. Just in the same way that adverts build mental models, fame and salience in our heads through repeated exposure – classic films do too.
Yet we have got to a point where storied film actor / director Robert Redford was better known amongst young adults as the person in the ‘nodding with approval’ man GIF as internet meme, than his film career. The GIF came from Redford’s performance in Jeremiah Johnson.
By comparison Netflix provides us with a conveyor belt of entertaining enough content. We don’t get to build that depth of relationship through repetition. The business model for TV was different. The right films on the right channel had people tuning in because they wanted the familiar.
Instead what we have now is the video algorithmic equivalent of the Spotify playlist or the shuffle play of an Apple iTunes library. Like the music our relationship is largely broken – we can choose something that suits our mood or a broad range of interests.
For most of the time the movies and shows aren’t culture shifting.
Hellhound as a case in point.
Others like Korean drama Hellbound (지옥) have cultural relevancy for a brief while before disappearing again.
I have used Google Trends as a quick and dirty way of showing this phenomenon.
Google Trends isn’t search volume, but the rate in change of search volume and web search volume is an indicative rather than absolute measure of consumer interest.
Channeling my inner Marshall MacLuhan: we have forgettable cinema because the medium is disappearing the message.
All is not completely lost yet.
All is not completely lost. I am a member of Letterboxd, which acts as a sort of ‘movies watched’ diary for me, (you can find my profile here). The Letterboxd community hosts challenges for its members like the Criterion challenge that encourages members to watch films from the Criterion collection in each of several different categories. It’s dynamic is reminiscent of the photowalks and meet-ups that built a real world community around Flickr the photo-sharing site and helped many develop an interest in photography.