Thatchers and Aardman Score a Christmas First

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Welcome to our new Ad Of The Month column where we dive deep on one of the month’s most interesting ads – asking what makes it effective, what our Test Your Ad diagnostics tell us about it, and what your brand can learn from it. This month it’s Thatchers Cider, with a record-breaking 5.9-Star ad, their best ever commercial and the first ever Cider Christmas ad. 

Thatchers are an unexpected newcomer in the Christmas ad race. It’s the time when brands roll out their best and biggest ads of the year, and we’re used to retailers leading the pack. But it’s not just shopping brands that can take advantage of the heightened emotions and open wallers of the festive season.  

Thatchers Cider and agency Bray Leino have come up with a charming animated Christmas adventure all about saving the brand’s famous “Tasting Time” quality check when the farm is snowed in. The maximum 5.9-Star Rating on Test Your Ad breaks all records for a Christmas drinks commercial – the category average is only 3.1-Stars. 

Long-term Star Rating isn’t the only area where “Saving Tasting Time” excels. It scores 65% Happiness (UK average 36%), an Exceptional short term Spike Rating (1.37 vs a category average of 1.18) and an Emotional Intensity of 1.73 (maximum 3, and category average only 1.31). 

To get these exceptional results, Thatchers had the best possible help. They called in Aardman Animations to create the ad, and while Thatchers may be new to the Christmas ad game, Aardman have a superb pedigree, lending classic characters like Shaun The Sheep and Wallace And Gromit to many brands over the years and always getting very strong results. Check out their 2025 Christmas ad with Barbour, a 5.8-Star festive treat. 

One of the interesting things about Aardman’s collaboration with Thatchers, though, is that the cider brand has stayed away from that kind of pre-existing character, what we at System1 call a “Hired Device”. We’ve explored how “Hired Devices” compare with Fluent Devices – recurring characters owned by the brand – and discovered that while Hired Devices often work well for a one-off, Fluent Devices are better at driving the creative consistency that leads to long-term success. 

Thatchers and Aardman have shown this by developing a true partnership. It combines the brand’s existing set of Fluent Devices and brand assets with Aardman’s world-beating animation craft and know-how. Thatchers ads were already extremely well-branded and consistent, and Aardman has helped take that to the next level. 

So this ad’s success is built on a successful existing foundation – the skill with which Thatchers has built a brand around its family business. Founder Martin Thatcher, his family, his dog, Myrtle Farm and the “Tasting Time” ritual are all lovingly recreated by Aardman (Martin’s coat alone took an entire week to make!). It’s no coincidence that the peak moment of Happiness in “Saving Tasting Time” comes when we see the whole family together at 22s. 

But these things all resonate and feel familiar to viewers because they’ve shown up over the years in other Thatchers ads. Martin Thatcher in particular stands alongside John Warburton as a brand owner who’s turned himself into a brand asset – making the brand feel authentic and personal. What Aardman did is take those existing assets and opened up their world to allow the kind of great animated storytelling you simply couldn’t do in live action.  

You can see that charm and craft at work in Aardman’s first collaboration with Thatchers, a 4.7-Star ad from 2023. All the brand assets from the Christmas ad are here, wrapped up in the message of care and perfectionism Thatchers wants to put across. One of the reasons Aardman and Thatchers are a great fit is this shared belief that craft and detail are worth caring about, and that really comes across in their ads. 

The Aardman-created Thatchers Christmas ad is a genuine first – it’s the first time any cider brand has run a Christmas ad. It moves away from the sun-soaked imagery of the typical cider ad to a wintry landscape which Aardman makes wonderfully cosy. The brand worked with System1 to test the ad and understand whether this move into unusual cider territory pays off. 

And it has paid off. Branding is strong throughout, with a particular lift when we first see Myrtle the Dog at 6 seconds. And in the key associations chart in Test Your Ad Pro, “Cider” and “Christmas” share first place. 

But to long-time watchers of Thatchers and Aardman it shouldn’t be a surprise the ad performs so well, breaking records and getting a 5-Star score across every demographic. The groundwork for its success has been carefully laid over the years by Thatchers nurturing of brand assets and Aardman’s deep understanding of advertising showmanship. The seeds for this perfect harvest were planted a long time ago. 

1 Big Lesson: Strong brand assets let you take big creative risks. Thatchers entered a category with no Christmas ad tradition and still achieved the maximum score because its familiar faces, places, and rituals were already doing the hard work.