Re-Airs Reign Supreme in the 2025 Holiday Ad Rankings
The holiday season is the most commercially powerful moment in the US advertising calendar, and it has been quietly outmuscling even the Super Bowl for long- and short-term impact. While the Big Game focuses on cut-through, surprise and social chatter, holiday ads play a different game, winning with consistency, familiarity and deep emotional appeal. Family, community, generosity, joy and those cinematic winter scenes aren’t just clichés, they’re the codes of an effectiveness engine that delivers year after year. For brands planning holiday or Super Bowl activity, this is the moment to ask whether we are over-optimizing for “wow” and under-investing in what really moves people and profit.
2025 is a standout year, delivering one of the strongest holiday seasons we have ever seen in System1’s Competitive Edge database, with a record number of ads achieving our maximum 5.9-Star Rating. In the UK, 5.9-Star Christmas ads are an established battleground. In the US, they have been rarer until now. The gap is closing, and 2025 suggests US brands are finally ready to challenge the UK on emotional effectiveness, not just media weight.
This year’s exceptional performance is powered by three things in particular: characters, consistency and storytelling.
Characters
Lovable, fluent brand characters are doing a lot of the heavy lifting, boosting recognition and delivering intense, positive emotion. From Kroger’s Krojis extending their run since the 2019 rebrand, to Dunkin’ bringing its Munchkins to life, to Apple’s cheeky woodland crew playfully selling the iPhone 17. The most effective work shows that characters do more than entertain, they create emotional bonds that make brands unforgettable.
Storytelling
Storytelling is working hand in hand with those characters. The strongest holiday ads deliver simple, human stories that feel authentic rather than over-engineered. Disney, for example, tells the story of a girl whose doodle comes to life when Santa mistakes it for a wish. Across the best work, brands focus on small but meaningful human moments instead of heavy-handed product pushing, and in doing so they build mental availability and affection that last long after the holidays.
Consistency
At the very top of the podium, our holiday heroes confirm a simple truth: characters and storytelling start the engine, but consistency gets you over the finish line. Hershey’s iconic “Bells” keeps proving you do not need to reinvent the wheel to drive growth, you just need to keep ringing the same one, distinctively. Coca-Cola’s AI-powered “Holidays Are Coming” refresh shows how you can modernize execution while staying rooted in the assets that have lived in people’s hearts and minds for decades.
So, what can you take into both your next holiday campaign and your 2026 Super Bowl playbook? Think of the holiday season as your effectiveness masterclass, a reminder that fluent, familiar, emotionally rich work is one of the safest ways to build long-term brand value.
The Rankings
With the above in mind, let’s unwrap the 2025 US holiday rankings.
12. Apple | TBWA\Media Arts Lab
“A Critter Carol”
5.3 Stars
Uplift versus Smartphones category +3.1 Stars
11. Best Buy
“Cookie”
5.5 Stars
Uplift versus Retailers category + 2.8 Stars
10. PetSmart | Deutsch
“Holiday Story: Grooming”
5.5 Stars
Uplift versus Pet Food & Accessories category +2.4 Stars
9. The Farmer’s Dog
“Thanks For Being Our Dogs”
5.6 Stars
Uplift versus Pet Food & Accessories category +2.4 Stars
8. Amazon
“Joy Ride”
5.7 Stars
Uplift versus Retailers category +3.1 Stars
7. Disney | Adam&eveDDB
“Holiday Short: Best Christmas Ever”
5.9 Stars
Uplift versus Television & Streaming Services +3.8 Stars
6. Sephora
“It’s Time!!! w/ Mariah Carey”
5.9 Stars
Uplift versus Cosmetics & Fragrances category +4.0 Stars
5. Kroger | Adam&eve DDB New York
“Operation Gingerbread”
5.9 Stars
Uplift versus Supermarkets category +3.3 Stars
4. M&M’s
“Faint”
5.9 Stars
Uplift versus Candy & Gum category +2.3 Stars
3. Dunkin | Artists Equity
“The Little Holiday Munchkin”
5.9 Stars
Uplift versus Fast Food & Coffee Shops category +2.4 Stars
2. Coca-Cola | WPP Open X led by VML and supported by EssenceMediacom and Ogilvy
“Holidays Are Coming”
5.9 Stars
Uplift versus Water, Juices, Soft Drinks & Cold Drinks category +3.3 Stars
1. Hershey’s
“Bells”
5.9 Stars
Uplift versus Candy & Gum category +2.3 Stars
Create with Confidence
System1’s Test Your Ad platform shows you exactly how your creative is landing emotionally on screen, across holidays, the Super Bowl and everything in between. With second-by-second emotional response, you can see the precise moments where your story, characters and brand assets spark feeling, and where the narrative needs strengthening to drive impact in any season.
Our team of creative effectiveness experts can help you turn that data into clear, practical decisions, so you can build fluent, familiar and emotionally powerful campaigns across your full-year calendar.
If you want your next holiday or Super Bowl campaign to work as hard as your media budget, get in touch with the team today.