*promote

Self promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Sunday, November 29th, 2015 9:58am PST - promote requested by original submitter SFOGuy.

If you have to fake your own death to get your 'loved ones' to visit, you're doing something wrong.

Not true really, we may have used to live in a world where everybody was born, lived and died in the same town and made holidays like that easy but we don't live in that world anymore.
Here's the part of that heartwarming little piece of crass commercialism they didn't show you. After the kids get put to bed the adults all sit gramps down and tell him that as much as they love him, if he ever pulls another stunt like that again we will bury you ourselves.

Then you don't know what capitalism promotes, do you? Money = not wasting time. Ie., what Edison said when he improved the light bulb...

So it's capitalism that makes grandpa manipulative and his children too wrapped up in their own daily lives to visit him?
The message this ad is sending is 'It's ok to fabricate drama to get your relatives' attention'. What the admakers want to communicate is that 'Edeka is a part of your home, your family life'. They're not really successful at it, the ad doesn't work as good as it could've. It would've been better if the children made grandpa believe that this year, again, they won't make it home for christmas but then, surpise, they show up anyways. With products bought at Edeka.
The loneliness of old age is a good theme for advertising but you have to get it right or you'll appear cynical and manipulative. Like grandpa.

No, capitalism is cynical and manipulative in general. It also promotes freedom in general, ie., the antithesis to community. Is it no wonder we bemoan the fact that kids are more into their ipads then the dinner table? But we promote that as entitled, and how dare someone tell you how to live. Etc., so forth and so on.

And btw, sleazier ads sell better than wholesome ads. So "they could have done it better" is actually only your opinion but makes very little economic sense. I used to say the same thing about Jerry Springer, then I looked at the dumbass audience that watches it...

What if you faked your death and STILL no one came? :-(

in reality 'what the hell papa!' and he was moved into nursing home the very same day.

Capitalism is a guideline or system of how to organise aspects of society (trade, labour and services for example), nothing more. How you use it defines its effect on us. I could sell you my child explicitly for the purpose of you raping it and it would show how evil capitalism is. Or I sell you my children's book explicitly for the purpose of you entertaining your own children and that would be quite nice.
The problem starts if you think everything needs to be a for profit business as capitalism should be unlimited. Then you live in a country that makes prisons privately owned businesses and thinks it's ok to bankrupt sick people and their families with medical bills.
Capitalism is as evil as the people controling it. Who allows these people to be evil? Who cares? Apparently not the majority.
However, all that is not the problem of this ad. The capitalism works to nobodies disadvantege here. Edeka tries to brand itself as family-friendly and established part of homelife. That is quite normal and acceptable for a grocery store. It is not like as if VW would be putting out ads on how honest they are.
The version of the ad I described as being better is as manipulative as this one with the exception that it doesn't make everyone look like assholes upon closer inspection.
Nobody nailed grandpa's door shut, he's allowed to step into the world and make new friends and other aquaintances. His isolation is understandable but mostly his own fault. I witnessed stuff like that myself, I have grandparents too.
On the other hand you bemoan the smombies of today. Do you see the irony of complaining about the screen-fixed stare of todays youth (and society in general) on an internet forum?
We created a distraction-addicted, short-term attention-spanned and self-affirming society on our own by willingly swallowing all the crap the distraction industry throws at us.
I don't have a twitter account because nothing I can say in 140 characters without established context is worth saying. That gotta mean something coming from me of all people.
I'm not on Facebook because I know what the 'StaSi' was and see no reason to do their work on my own person for Mr. Zuckerberg and his shareholders.
I have no internet connection on my cellphone because I prefer to know stuff instead of just looking it up. I don't write text messages all the time because I prefer spoken words with their complexity that simplifies communication instead of emojis that emulate things my face did since before cellphones stopped being science-fiction.
I choose not to stare at the palm of my hand and what's lying in it every 5 minutes because I can. Most of our modern society chooses differently. They chose poorly, as the real oldtimers would say.
And here we are, yet again, ranting about the evils of enticing screens in our lives, live on the internet. You know, we would not be this absurd joke if we'd sat at a dinnertable right now. With food and drink from Edeka.

I can see why its liked.

Dripping sappy but well executed.