BERLIN—A German supermarket chain’s TV ad has prompted floods of tears with its grim holiday story about an old man whose children never visit, not even at Christmas.
His guilt-ridden children only return home after being told of grandpa’s death and discover that—spoiler alert—he’s not dead after all.
By Wednesday, the video from EDEKA supermarket had racked up more than 20 million views online in five days, with “can’t stop crying” among the typical comments.
The clip addresses a sensitive topic in Germany, where an estimated 8 million people over 60 say they suffer from occasional or permanent loneliness, campaigners say.
“There’s a lot of stigma attached to loneliness in Germany, because the feeling is that people have only themselves to blame if they don’t tend to their social contacts,” said Elke Schilling, a retiree who campaigns for senior citizens’ rights.
Schilling, who is launching a hotline for lonely older Germans based on a similar project in Britain, said she felt ambivalent about the topic being used to promote a supermarket.
