Children’s fear about Santa not being able to deliver presents has become a very entertaining new version by Airbnb of the classic Christmas poem, A Visit from St. Nicholas – and a humorous putdown of hotels. The aim, of course, is to trigger thinking about Airbnb as the better option for holiday stays.

In the 60-second Christmas commercial, Santastrophe, created by the Airbnb creative team, Santa comes up against a frustrating barrage of obstacles – chosen from an initial list of dozens, many of which did not make the cut for the final spot. In an early version, Santa gets stuck in a lift as a child has hit the button to every floor. He promptly pulls out his list, and moves the child named Brian from “nice” to “naughty”.

The attention to detail in Airbnb’s first narrative commercial is remarkable. The tiniest details were carefully chosen to create the Santa children imagine. There’s even an Easter egg in Santa’s attire –the gold stitching on his red coat is in the shape of the Belo, the Airbnb logo.

The commercial is running will run on social, TV, and in cinemas starting November 28 in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, Germany, Mexico and Brazil.