Every holiday season, I feel I see a mix of new television commercials and repeats from previous years. I know there will always be a “different” (if that’s the right way to put it) Old Navy commercial, the typical jewelry commercial and a ton of car commercials.

When I see these car commercials, I almost always see the same thing. The big red bow or a woman opening a jewelry box and there is a Lexus car key in it. They are all the same, all overdone, and pretty much all boring.

Why do advertisers feel that during the holiday season they have to stick with tradition? Why do they have to do the exact same commercial they’ve run year after year?

With people now fast-forwarding commercials more than ever, television commercials have become one of the quickest declining traditional forms of advertising. That should be an instant wake-up call to advertisers and their marketing agencies. You need to make your commercial stand out. Make people not want to fast-forward. Make them want to actually watch your commercial.

When I saw the first second of the first Honda commercial this season, I thought, great a repeat from the last few years. Happy Honda Days! But then I kept watching until the end. I realized they were telling a story with the commercial. At the end they say, “You have your holiday traditions. We have ours.” I went, wow, they made a little tweak to the commercial they did last year–You have your holiday traditions. I started seeing more and more of them. Each commercial is specifically tailored to a certain type of person/interest and they show the exact car that would be perfect for that type of person. Genius you may ask? I think so. Make a commercial 100% tailored to an individual, to the every day person.

Some of my favorite out of the bunch are as follows:

1) Happy Honda Days winter golfing (guys’ day out)

2) Happy Honda Days football game (how men- and myself- won’t miss a football game no matter what the weather)

3) Happy Honda Days dog sled (a holiday family outing)

And my personal favorite and so appropriate for anyone living where it stays warm during the holidays (thank you San Diego): Happy Honda Days Surfing Santa.

Thank you, Honda. By making this slight change, without breaking too far away from your traditional holiday commercials, you have actually made me want to watch commercials instead of fast-forwarding.  However, I currently drive a Honda Civic so you haven’t enticed me to actually buy a new one. But, I will gladly take one as a present, if you would like to give me one, since mine is getting old. I mean, it is the holidays right?