Glovely Stuff: Morrisons Get The Maximum Score At Christmas

For British ads, it really is the most wonderful time of the year. November sees the release of major retailers’ Christmas ads, and brands and agencies really bring their best. We often see more 5-Star ads at Christmas than the rest of the year combined. It takes something truly special to stand out.

Something like – a much beloved festive character? Or dazzling, budget-busting effects? Yes, those things can work. But what if you could score a maximum 5.9-Stars on Test Your Ad by simply taking a part of Christmas nobody had ever paid much attention to and bringing it to gloriously lovable life?

That’s exactly what Morrisons and agency Leo Burnett have done in their gem of an ad. They’ve earned 5.9-Stars by putting the spotlight on one of the hidden helpers of a family Christmas – the humble oven glove. In Morrisons’ spot, a host of animated gloves sing Starship’s classic 80s ballad “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” as they shepherd their precious cargo from oven to table.

The gloves dance, sing, sway, make heart signs and are generally adorable. That’s literally all there is to the ad, and to put anything else in would have been a waste. It’s a masterclass in perfectly executing a simple idea – one that won’t have broken the bank for Morrisons in budget terms but which works superbly at any length or on any platform.

This is Morrisons’ first maximum score on Test Your Ad but they’ve been performing well at Christmas in recent years, with strong ads in 2021 and 2022 starring their Farmer Christmas character. The oven gloves take them up another gear, though, and put the retailer in the same league as the traditional big beasts of Christmas advertising like M&S and Aldi.

The gloves ad hits two of the main themes we’ve been observing in this year’s Christmas ad selection. The first is taking a closer look at Christmas traditions. A couple of prominent ads have chosen an edgier route to this – chucking out old traditions and inventing new ones. But Morrisons here show you can get even better audience response by being quirky – spotting a part of the tradition people don’t usually think about.

The second is animated characters – both animals and objects – which has been a growing trend for several years and is really reaching a peak in 2023. Morrisons’ gloves are a great addition to the pantheon of Christmas characters alongside Kevin The Carrot and the M&S Food Fairy. But they have potential to do even more – after all, an oven glove is for life, not just for Christmas. With this level of hit on their hands, Leo Burnett and Morrisons should think carefully about whether the gloves live on when the decorations come down.