Give Morrisons a Big Hand for Their Gloves Comeback

The oven gloves are back! For its 2024 Christmas ad supermarket Morrisons has brought back its singing oven gloves, which brought joy to viewers last Christmas and put the brand in the top division of festive ads. While the 2023 ad was a simple one, with the singing gloves helping a family out in the kitchen, this year’s effort is an all-singing, all-dancing musical spectacular with a cast of hundreds of gloves to entertain viewers, to the tune of a song from Bugsy Malone.

Agency Leo Burnett has pulled out all the stops to make an ad that’s even more fun and memorable than last years, and its paid off. At 5.7-Stars this is one of the best Supermarket ads we’ve seen in 2024 and keeps Morrisons in the top tier of holiday commercials for long-term effectiveness. On our other two key metrics – short-term Spike and Brand Fluency – the ad easily outperforms the 2023 predecessor. The singing gloves get Exceptional results in both measures, giving Morrisons the coveted “triple whammy” of Exceptional Test Your Ad scores.

As Jennifer England, Head Of Marketing at Morrisons, put it, “We’re really pleased with the significant step on for Spike (1.77 this year vs 1.38) and Fluency (95 this year vs 88 last year).  These were key focus areas for us to drive improvement in our creative effectiveness year on year.  Short term sales impact is a priority for us in the bear pit of Christmas trading and speed and accuracy of brand attribution is clearly critical – it’s no good customers loving an ad if they can’t recall who it was for the following day.”

What makes the ad so good? The gloves stood out last year because of the sense of cheeky fun they represented. While other brands showed off fantasy characters or told complex stories, Morrisons captured a more playful side of Christmas. And while a lot of brands portray making a Christmas dinner as a hassle the brand can make easier, Morrisons found a new angle by bringing out the joy in cooking and making it even better.

That’s all back in the new ad, but also the simple fact of bringing back the gloves is a winning strategy. In our latest report, Compound Creativity, we explore how sticking with an idea that works, re-airing ads and re-using characters is a major contribution to the kind of creative consistency that leads to increased growth. 5-Star ads are already working hard for their brands, but if they’re part of a long term, creatively consistent project that benefit is even greater.

Since the first gloves ad was a major hit for the brand, outperforming previous Christmas Morrisons ads, it makes sense to bring them back bigger and better for round two. The ad nods to last year with the returning “Kitten Mitten” while introducing new gloves, including a whole set of Union Jack-themed mittens. Morrisons have also made sure that this year the ad is strongly branded from the beginning. Compound creativity works best when the creative idea has firm brand associations and viewers can quickly spot who’s made it – Morrisons gets this job done with an opening shot where a delivery van pulls away before the Christmas fun begins.

With a second high 5-Star Rating and exceptional short-term scores, the gloves have proved themselves worthy of their comeback. Creative consistency in holiday ads used to be as rare as a White Christmas, but Morrisons can join the growing list of brands who’ve reversed that trend, stuck with ideas that work, and are reaping the effectiveness rewards.

Get Into the Christmas Spirit With Our Christmas Advertising Playlist!