“A Christmas Movie About Christmas Movies”: Sky’s Storytelling Gets the Top Score

With a wealth of Christmas Classic movies available on demand, you’d expect media and streaming services to perform well when it comes to making effective ads. But there’s more to it than just putting a few favourites in a highlight reel. With their 2024 Christmas ad, Sky Cinema offer a showcase in how to turn their unique selection of great IP into great emotional storytelling.

The ad follows a little girl over the course of the festive season watching several Christmas favourites on Sky Cinema, like Elf and Wonka, while her family gets ready for the holidays. She is paying particular attention to certain crucial scenes, and it turns out she has a plan of her own – there’s a boy she likes and she uses dialogue from her favourite movies to find the words she needs to ask him out. (He says yes, of course!)

It’s a clever and original spin on the media advert which manages to convey the message that Sky has all the best Christmas movie treats. But it also threads the scenes together in a way that justifies the highlights and makes them something greater than the sum of their parts. It turns what could have been a purely promotional ad into something richer, warmer and more human while still getting an emotional boost from the inclusion of festive favourites.

As Robin Garton, Group ECD Advertising Sky put it, “We’ve created a mini-Christmas Movie about Christmas movies. Narrative arc, protagonist, jeopardy, triumph – all the ingredients of great storytelling. It’s (back to) the stuff that made Christmas ads a thing in the first place”

The result is an ad that performs to the highest Test Your Ad standards. It’s released in two lengths – a 60 and a 30 second spot – and both of them manage to get a 5-Star Rating on Test Your Ad. The shorter 30 second version achieves a 5.9-Star Rating, the highest possible grade on our measure of long-term effectiveness. And it also gets an Exceptional score on the Spike Rating that predicts short term sales impact.

Abbey Kickham, Head of Movies Marketing at SKY and Now, explained the thinking behind the ad: “It’s really hard to cut through with lots of brands making great adverts at Christmas. So, to standout and showcase our unique offering in a memorable way, it was important we used emotive storytelling to celebrate the joy of watching movies with Sky Cinema this Christmas.”

A 5.9-Star Rating shows that Sky really have managed to stand out, landing in the top tier of Christmas Ads and making one of the most effective UK media ads we have ever tested. For those who haven’t followed Sky’s track record of top-rank advertising it may be surprising to learn that “The Little Girl” was created entirely in-house, Sky being one of a number of A-List brands (others include Amazon and M&S Food) to have moved away from the traditional agency model when crafting their Christmas ad. Even a decade ago in-house production was seen as risky on ads as important as the Christmas commercial, but Sky are proving that a brilliant ad is a brilliant ad, whatever the source.

Hungry for more festive insights? For a comprehensive look at the 2024 holiday ads, download our “12 Gifts of Christmas” report.

Get Into the Christmas Spirit With Our Christmas Advertising Playlist!