Kay Casts Colin Jost in an Odyssey-Themed Holiday Push

Kay Jewelers launched a holiday campaign this week starring Saturday Night Live's Colin Jost, and it's a deliberate reversal of the brand's usual playbook: the ad speaks to the person buying the gift, not the one receiving it.

In the spot, Jost trudges through a blizzard in a period robe, reenacting a comic version of Homer's The Odyssey in search of a thoughtful present. The journey ends when he finds a silver Kay necklace. The Martin Agency created the work, which starts running this week across Kay's Instagram and YouTube channels, linear TV, and streaming.

Why target the giver?

The strategy is grounded in a real stress point. According to the American Psychological Association's 2023 Holiday Stress Survey, 40% of people struggle to find the right gifts, making it one of the season's biggest stressors. Kay built the campaign around that anxiety, urging shoppers to "gift boldly" on the logic that "the biggest mistake isn't gifting the wrong thing; it's holding back," per the brand.

The pivot departs from Kay's previous holiday work, which centered primarily on the gift recipient. This year the brand is addressing the annual decision paralysis that givers face — a creative bet that humor about second-guessing lands harder than sentimentality about unwrapping.

Julie Yoakum, president of Kay, framed the message as encouragement rather than pressure. "The holidays often bring pressure to find the perfect gift, but we want to remind shoppers that the most meaningful gifts come from expressing how you feel and showing up wholeheartedly for the people you love," she said. "Colin's signature humor brings that idea to life in a way that resonates with anyone who's ever second-guessed what to gift someone they care about."

What does this change for marketers?

The campaign extends Kay's "Love All In" platform, launched earlier this fall, which introduced a new brand tone meant to capture the many ways love shows up today. It also revives the grand gesture — literally an odyssey — as a creative device, at a moment the brand says nonchalance has become the norm.

For practitioners, the takeaway is a media and message split worth noting: a celebrity-led comedic narrative distributed simultaneously across social (Instagram, YouTube), linear TV, and streaming. That's a full-funnel holiday flight designed to work as short-form social clips and long-form TV alike.

The wager here is that gift-giver anxiety is a more universal emotional hook than receiver delight — and that a comedic epic structure gives the campaign shelf life as shareable social content beyond the seasonal TV buy. Whether "gifting boldly" translates into holiday sales will show early in Kay's Q4 numbers.