Holiday campaigns usually swoop in with sleigh bells and stock footage of snowy pine trees. But this year, Ocean Spray turned expectations upside-down—enlisting Bryan Cranston as Cranpus, a horned, cranberry-hoarding creature born of myth (and marketing). The result? A brand narrative big enough to stake its claim in the season’s most chaotic holiday line-up.
Cranpus isn’t Santa. He’s more like Santa’s mischievous cousin—sneaking into dinner tables, snagging cranberry sauce, and out-smarting gift-giving elves. As Cranston’s line goes: “Don’t let the season eat your cranberries.” Under the new “Just Add Cran, Beware of Cranpus” campaign, Ocean Spray isn’t just advertising cranberry sauce. They’re dramatizing the emotional gap when it’s missing. It’s a theatrical shift from “buy our product” to “what happens when you don’t.”
The visuals are cinematic. Cranston’s creature costume—horned, clawed, cranberry-red—leans campy and bold. The film opens on an idyllic holiday scene disrupted: plates left empty, guests confused, children’s choir replaced by surreal cranberry-theft scenes. It punctuates with the Cranpus silhouette looming over a sumptuous, cranberry-heavy table. It’s theatrical, and intentionally unsettling—enough to stop a scroll and grab attention.
Strategically, it’s smart. The campaign runs across streaming TV, social media, interactive digital content, and in-store displays—all centered around the cranberry’s moment of cultural importance: the holiday feast. It transforms a humble fruit into a central character. By doing that, Ocean Spray elevates the category and secures relevance beyond the ingredient aisle.
And there’s culture in the bones. Cranston’s casting is tongue-in-cheek (his surname evokes cran-berry after all), his character is mythic and meme-ready, and the storyline treads the line between cheeky and mildly absurd. The brand isn’t apologizing for the oddness, it’s embracing it. The narrative becomes not just about sauce, but about folklore, loss, and rediscovery of simple pleasures.
What makes this campaign truly work is the tone. Instead of luxury or nostalgia alone, it leans on humor and myth, giving Gen Z and boomers alike a reason to talk. The scandal of “Cranpus stole the sauce” is both silly and sticky. When a brand introduces a creature you half-expect to buy merchandise of, you know they’ve moved beyond product and into culture.
At the end of the day, Ocean Spray didn’t just launch a holiday advert—they created the story behind the sauce. And the story will live longer than any 30-second spot.
When the myth’s weird and the cranberry’s sacred, your ad becomes the story. — Julian Vega
