A movie about how awesome fruitcake is. We’re really going there? OK, Lifetime. You’re the one that said it.
Varma Fruitcakes is a family-owned company that makes fruitcake. When her parents hire an outside marketing company for their holiday marketing, Mira (Rekha Sharma) is concerned that it will make the company look bad. Will her traditional values be reflected in Brady’s (Dion Johnstone) marketing campaign or will the company go bankrupt?
Let’s start with the truth here. Fruitcake is disgusting. No amount of marketing will make anyone under the age of 60 want to buy it. Your company should really branch out into other baked items.
With that out of the way, let’s talk about Baking Spirits Bright. I hate this movie a lot. And the reason I hate this movie is Mira. This entire movie is based on Mira not wanting to do anything to update the family company. She wants everything to stay just like it was when she was a young child. I’m sorry but, if you want your company to succeed, you have to change with the times. You can’t grow if you want to stay exactly the same.
I’m also annoyed at the two marketing campaigns we are shown. Brady gives us a retro campaign. Fine. He gave into Mira’s irrational fears and came up with a fairly cute campaign. However, we also see a social media campaign from Brady’s junior co-worker, Finn (Riun Garner). This campaign seems solely based on giving some sample products to YouTubers and letting them do whatever they want. That isn’t how a social media campaign works. Companies give the influencers an idea of what they are looking for and the company vets the videos before they go live. No one is sitting there chewing on their fingernails as they watch the videos to see what is said. And why in the world would Finn pick a “Dare channel” to market the product? That is the only influencer we see in the campaign. It was a very stupid decision.
There is seriously nothing redeeming about Baking Spirits Bright. Stay far away from this one. I’m sure there will be plenty of baking-related movies to take its place. This one, and its fruitcake, belong in the trash.