Amazon Vs Santa

Loved by parents and children, the iconic Santa brand has retained an iron-like grip on Christmas gift delivery – at least until now. Jeff Bezos and his, trillion-dollar, Amazon brand plan to end the Santa monopoly.

A festive fight comes at a difficult time for the Santa brand which is facing criticism for institutional male bias. Interbrand, like many branding experts are backing Amazon to win. They point to Santa’s failed attempts to stretch beyond Christmas, the reputational damage of the Bad Santa movies and recent research that shows people don’t trust men with beards.

blogbadsanta — YouGov found 20% of the public see clean-shaven men as trustwothy Vs 6% bearded

Yesterday Amazon unveiled their ‘secret Santa’ weapon: a ‘Naughty List‘ algorithm. Applying machine learning to data from the home conversations of Alexa users, child facial / gesture recognition and social media activity it promises error-free targeting of good children.

Following demonstrations of the algorithm’s remarkable predictive power law enforcement agencies are in a bidding war to access the results.

To persuade parents to switch, Amazon will beat Santa’s ‘all children in one night’ offer with a free guaranteed 2-hour delivery slot to any location inside your home.

This market-leading offer follows the introduction of thousands of tiny ‘elf-like’ robots into Amazon warehouses and a new fleet of parcel-carrying drones. Using the ‘Amazon Key’ service delivery drivers are free to access homes at night, can place presents in chosen locations and will quickly consume all available food and alcohol.

Bezos was quick to reassure investors that the recent strike by the elf-like robots has ended and they will now receive the same pay and conditions as human workers.

Responding to concerns from reindeer protection groups, Bezos defended the drones as faster “with no methane or mess.” He refused to be drawn on whether the Amazon Prime re-make of Miracle on 34th Street would retain a Santa character.