The Polish Christmas ad has hit 7 million YouTube views in just 10 days.
The ad, made for Polish auction website Allegro has almost 8 million views on the site’s Facebook page.
What are you looking for at Christmas? English for beginners is a tale of a Polish grandfather learning to speak English ahead of a holiday trip to London and has resonated with its online audience.
Grandpa begins with prepositions and pronouns, before making mistaken, out-of-place declarations on the city bus and foul-mouthed threats in the bath.
The mini-movie makes little mention in its 3-minute runtime of the product advertised – a Polish auction website – other than an opening title and the sign-off: “And you? What are you looking for?”
Allegro‘s Facebook page has fielded an overwhelmingly positive reaction in the 1,200 comments beneath the video.
Some say it is the only ad they have watched to the end or the only one to have made them cry, and Allegro appears to be responding to as many of the comments as possible.
However, the 2,500 comments below on YouTube are also interested in the breed of dog belonging to the grandfather and the violent goading toward the rubber duck.
Allegro is the fifth largest website in Poland, according to figures from web traffic analysis site Alexa Internet, and has previously put out an ad with more than 2.5 million views on YouTube.
English for beginners has outstripped the viewing numbers of Allegro’s most recent commercials, What do you do every year?, with 60,000 views, and What do you do every day?, with 900,000 views.
