When Thomas Lewis Jones created a Christmas ad for his family-owned hardware store, he had no idea that the £100 ad would go viral and firmly bed the Welsh store on the map. Check out this family store’s £100 ad and see why simple really is better.

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Christmas ads have become a competitive industry – who will have the most emotional, most memorable, or most expensive ad? Some brands are behind the biggest annual showstoppers, while others are viral one-hit-wonders, but one thing’s for sure – the budget behind these ads is huge, with total spend rivalling Hollywood movies.

We were excited to see that a local Welsh business, Hafod Hardware, had become the latest to enter the Christmas ad showcase. But the best bit? They only spent £100 on the ad!

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Watch this Clever £100 Christmas Ad

Thomas Lewis Jones, grandson of the current owners, runs Hafod Hardware in Rhayader, Wales and created the promotional video with the help of family and friends.

The ad shows his young son Arthur working in the shop, decorating for Christmas, and helping customers, then ends with him transforming into his father, with a slogan encouraging visitors to “be a kid this Christmas”.

The ad has now been viewed more than 1.3 million times and Mr Jones told the PA news agency: “It has been crazy…we’ve been overwhelmed with nice emails and messages from all over the world.”

“The only thing we had to pay for was getting our singer into the music studio and paying the sound engineer.”

“Everyone you see in the video is my family. There’s four generations featured in the video and it was made with the help of my best friend Josh Holdaway, who is a filmmaker.”

“We’ve done adverts for the last two years, this is the third instalment, Arthur features in all the adverts. This year we wanted to just do something that was quite simple to film that had a nice message and story.

“The locals are incredible, they’re our bread and butter, we’re very lucky to have the community we have here in Rhayader.”

“The underlying message is that small independent businesses can offer you just as much as your large high street chains. Try and shop locally over Christmas if you can.”

You can take a look at the Hafod Hardware £100 Christmas ad here:

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What do you think of this £100 Christmas ad – better than the big budget ones? Leave a comment below and let us know – we’d love to hear from you!