Arts & Sciences and Erste Group Deliver an Ad Age Creativity Editor’s Pick

A historical Christmas ad from European financial services company Erste Group tells the tale of the composition of “Silent Night” in 1818 Austria and its subsequent impact across the world.

Created by Jung von Matt Donau, “Silent Night” tells the origin story of the famous holiday carol, which is the most recorded song in the world, in an astonishing re-enactment.

The story begins in the Austrian village of Obendorf in the winter of 1818, when a young man, revealed to be the town’s priest, Joseph Mohr, notices his neighbors struggling to feel the Christmas spirit amid poverty and low morale following the Napoleonic Wars. Inspired to lift their spirits, he joins forces with music teacher and friend Franz Xaver Gruber, who helped him compose a song on Christmas Eve. Called “Silent Night,” they perform it later that same evening to the townsfolk at mass.

The rest of the short film captures ripples in time to demonstrate the impact of the song globally— a Tyrolean choir performs it for Austrian Emperor Franz I in 1822; violinist Reginald Fesseden plays it during the first-ever radio entertainment broadcast in America in 1906; soldiers on the Western Front—German and English—lay down their arms to sing together in the trenches during a rare moment of peace during World War I.

Head to Ad Age for more on this Creativity Editor's Pick directed by Arts & Sciences Daniel & Szymon.