I’m in Ireland and am not sure whether these ads are Ireland-specific or not, because I can’t remember which channel shows them, but I think they’re both for McDonalds.
One depicts a boy being given his mother’s old car for his 17th birthday, being visibly unimpressed, being mocked by his friends on the street for driving his mum’s car, then using small change she’d left in the car to go to a McDonalds’ drive-through, and then magically feeling empowered enough to play his embarrassing old mum’s music at deafening levels on the way home. Back home, his mum looks at him with big, worried ‘Have I failed him?’ eyes, and melts when he gives her a burger and finally grunts some thanks at her.
The other one is animated and features another mother trying to get her young teenage son to engage with her as he scowls and is glued to a screen/phone/headphones. In ‘Inside Out’ style we see his Inner Child as a small animation in his chest warming slightly, while outwardly he stays sullen as she tries everything — Christmas markets, tree decorations — until finally she buys him a McDonalds and he thaws out and helps decorate the tree as if making a major concession.
What interests me is why some ad agency has decided to depict apparently permanently apologetic middle-aged women as desperately hoping and going to enormous lengths to get their sullen sons to behave as if they, too, are human beings. Buy him a McDonalds and maybe he’ll be less fundamentally embarrassed by you and your crappy presents and Christmas markets. Yay.