Low Key, High Impact: L.L. Bean’s Gentle Ad is a Holiday Winner
L.L. Bean
Invited to the Holidays Since 1912
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Exhausted by blockbuster holiday ads with their in-your-face celebrity celebrations? L.L. Bean has the alternative you’re looking for. In their 2025 Christmas ad, created with agency Day One, the emphasis is on homespun holiday memories.
The 30-second ad is a collage of polaroids, photos, home movies and film clips all featuring L.L. Bean check clothes, paying homage to the brand’s place in American outdoor life since its founding in 1912. The gentle, even modest approach certainly stands out among the other holiday commercials of 2025, but low-key doesn’t mean low-impact. L.L. Bean’s ad scores 4.9-Stars on the Test Your Ad platform, placing it well above the 2025 US holiday ad average of 4.0-Stars so far.
What makes the ad work so well? It strikes a lot of emotional notes that busier holiday ads might struggle to. First of all, it’s an extremely cozy commercial, with a strong emphasis on togetherness and warmth. That fits well with a brand that protects you from the elements, but it also strikes a positive, nourishing note at the end of a bruising and turbulent year for many Americans. Test Your Ad gives us more evidence that L.L. Bean are resonating emotionally with an exceptional short-term Spike Rating metric – again, firmly above the holiday norm, and based partly on the ad’s emotional intensity.
The ad also makes a smart choice in focusing on the brand’s heritage. Home movies from the 90s, old film clips and photos all evoke days gone by, even as the brand makes sure to feature an inclusive set of American families. The ad is held together not just by this aura of cozy nostalgia but by the comfortable red check clothes themselves, which show up in every clip. The result is a commercial that gently places its brand at the heart of the holiday season and the heart of American families, without ever feeling inauthentic.
The final touch we’d like to highlight is the tagline – “Invited to the holidays since 1912”. This is a brand that isn’t pushing itself on viewers, but is emphasizing how families have chosen to make L.L. Bean clothes a part of their winter wear for over a century. It’s the final bit of craft that ties this warm, emotional ad together.
Craft is something we talk about a lot at System1. It takes more than a great idea to make a great holiday ad – it takes a commitment to great execution and getting small details right. That’s one reason this ad is so inspiring – Day One have made the most of a brief without breaking the bank, and the result is a commercial which resonates throughout these holidays and could do a similar job across many more.
