Google x NBCU Holiday

For the 2025 holiday season, Google partnered with NBCUniversal to prove that even the most delightfully over‑the‑top holiday crises can be solved with a little AI‑powered magic. Leaning into the soaring popularity of campy, made‑for‑TV Christmas rom‑coms, we created three faux movie trailers — The Naughty Lister, Sleigh My Name, and The Gift EXchange — each packed with parody tropes, self-aware and pun-laden dialogue, and Google’s suite of shopping features.
The campaign brought together an eclectic cast from NBCU’s portfolio featuring ten fan‑favorite talents: Nicolas Vansteenberghe (Love Island), Ciara Miller (Summer House, The Traitors), Nicole Byer (Grand Crew), Johnny Weir (Olympian, The Traitors), Phaedra Parks (The Real Housewives of Atlanta, The Traitors), Bob the Drag Queen (The Traitors), John Lutz (30 Rock, Late Night with Seth Meyers), Nikki Garcia (WWE, The Traitors), Taylor Kinney (Chicago Fire), and Donna Kelce (The Traitors). By uniting stars from reality, sports, competition, and scripted dramas, we were able to deliver the festive crossover event fans didn’t know they needed.
Each film showcased a different Google feature in a way only a holiday parody could: Sleigh My Name used Google Try‑On to fuel a fame‑tarnished pop star’s makeover; The Naughty Lister leaned into Product Comparison to help a chronic bad‑gifter redeem himself; and The Gift EXchange paired rekindled romance with Google Lens, making the search for the perfect present part of the plot.
Behind the scenes, the scale of the production — from coordinating ten high‑profile talents to building three distinct holiday worlds — became its own kind of Christmas miracle. And while the team navigated challenges worthy of a movie montage, those hurdles only added to the campaign’s charm and ambition.
The final result was a self‑aware, lovingly exaggerated trilogy that audiences embraced wholeheartedly. Viewers flooded comments asking for full‑length versions of the films, turning a playful branded partnership into a mini cultural moment. By blending genre nostalgia, cross‑portfolio star power, and Google’s AI‑powered tools, the campaign showed that even fake holiday movies can spark very real fan obsession.