‘Amasongs’: How Mophonics Helped Amazon Deliver Some Absurdly Retro Christmas Cheer

Around this time last year, a wonderfully wacky campaign from Amazon introduced the world to the Robocats. But the quartet of peace-loving, freedom-fighting felines on a quest to defeat the villainous Globlak were just some of the breakout stars from ‘Amasongs’ - a series of ads which took an offbeat approach to the holiday season. 

The out-of-the-box videos were met with viral success, as the aforementioned Robocats spot became the most-shared Topview ad on TikTok in 2022. And this year, the retail behemoth is setting out to repeat a similar trick. Tapping once more into the musical and songwriting talent at Mophonics, more polka-style melodies with lyrics equal parts joyful and bizarre will soundtrack Amazon’s holiday season this time around. 

All of which is, frankly, good news for those of us looking for something a little different. This year’s selection of Amasongs stays true to the charming absurdity that made last year’s efforts such a festive treat, whilst venturing in new directions that nobody could safely predict. 

To find out more about Amasongs and the thinking behind the campaign, LBB caught up with Mophonics’ composer & creative director, Casey Gibson, alongside Amazon’s global CCO, Jo Shoesmith…

LBB> Jo, this campaign is pretty different from a lot of what we see on our screens these days. How did the team land on this concept, and how are the spots being received?

Jo Shoesmith> “Different” is definitely one way to describe it. This campaign was actually inspired by one of the first Amazon Holiday campaigns that aired back in the '90s, which featured a sweater-clad men’s choir (encouraging people to shop “Amazon dot com”), and was based on holiday variety programmes from the '50s and '60s. 

Even though the dated references were probably older than the parents of our target audience, it was almost better suited for today’s sound-on social environment because the creative naturally had the same ingredients of the most popular content: musical, irreverent, and lo-fi. So, knowing it was oddly already socially native, we just doubled-down on the dated reference material to disrupt people’s feeds, sprinkled in some internet-humour, and people seemed to respond pretty well.

LBB> “Robocats” was the most-shared Topview ad on TikTok last year. What is it about that spot that you think connected with the TikTok audience?

JS> Best practices would tell you to make your TikTok ad as short as possible. Since everyone that opens TikTok is immediately exposed to the Topview Ad, we treated it like it was a Super Bowl spot. We didn’t want to shortchange the opportunity to entertain millions of people, so we maxed out the Topview time limit (:60) and made sure we rewarded people the longer they stuck with the ad. 

The key for us was escalating the humour and the absurd visuals which started out with dueling choirs (Black Friday from the present vs Cyber Monday from the future) arguing about which day was superior, and ultimately built to a WTF non-sequitur about Robocats because… why not? Ultimately, I think people appreciated the fact that we clearly weren’t taking ourselves too seriously.

LBB> Casey, lyrics like last year’s “stuff to squeeze between your buns” and this year’s “you deserve a tap on the tushie” are future Instagram captions and instant classics. Any chance there’s a merch line dropping?

Casey Gibson> We relish any opportunity to write lyrical songs, especially when the creative is this fun. The writing process for this campaign is incredibly collaborative with Amazon’s creative team, which has been so fruitful–not only are they helping craft these songs from a lyrical standpoint, they’re considering how they’ll translate visually, which is a big reason these spots turn out so great. It’s a pretty narrow needle to thread: the messaging has to be there, the spots need to work hard, but how can we make them as funny as possible in 15 or 60 seconds? The Holiday Choir’s world is so inherently funny and absurd that the hardest part was keeping them short. 

No merch line yet, but we’re still crossing our fingers there’s a full TV season or Broadway adaptation at some point.

LBB> Polka music hasn’t been this heavily featured around the holidays since John Candy’s iconic role as Gus Polinski, Polka King of the Midwest. What was the writing and production process like for a campaign like this?

CG> Mophonics is blessed to have a deep bench of polka writers, which obviously comes in handy for projects like this. One of the best parts is getting back first drafts of demos from our composers–we had so many funny ideas and performances coming in that it was almost impossible to cull it down. Once things have started to take shape and demos are shoot-ready, we start producing everything, including bringing in a live accordionist, replacing software instruments with real ones, and finally adding our choir performances and sound design.

We spent a lot of time last year getting the mix just right–we really pushed hard to achieve that old variety show soundstage sound–so this year, because we already had the blueprint, it afforded us more time to finesse vocal performances and try sound design ideas that would tickle us.

LBB> Jo, if you’re going to do some sneaky Cyber Monday shopping at work, do you: pretend to be the floor, or hide in the break room refrigerator?

JS> Wow, you don’t shy away from the tough questions. I like that. Honestly, it’s a question I’ve been asking myself for years. As long as none of the food in the fridge has gone bad and/or become sentient, I reckon I’d choose the fridge. Actually, I’m always cold. Scratch that, you can find me on the floor, under a rug, shopping Cyber Monday deals for my kids… but ultimately buying something for my dogs.

LBB> Casey, if there was a VH-1 Pop-Up Video for one of these spots, what’s some behind-the-scenes trivia we’d be shocked to learn?

CG> There are a few fun Easter eggs this year calling back to last year’s spots, but you’re going to have to find those for yourself. One interesting thing is, in “Deals Never End,” our choir had to hold their last note for 38 seconds. They actually trained with freediving breath coaches for six months to build up the lung capacity to sing that note, which may seem like overkill to some, but I think it was worth it.