Our Test Your Ad Premium database has cemented its place as the world’s largest subscription-based ad database, made possible by our ongoing commitment to testing ads with real consumers to measure emotional responses to creative.
Each January, as part of our highly anticipated Nation’s Favourite Ads program, we celebrate standout campaigns from our unparalleled database using the prestigious Star Rating to measure emotional impact and predict long-term brand-building potential. For 2024, we’ve added a fresh focus on key moments that captured national attention—like Christmas, the Euros, and category-specific highlights—spotlighting brands delivering emotionally engaging work when audiences were most attentive.
But we didn’t stop there! Taking inspiration from two of our most influential reports from 2024—“The Extraordinary Cost of Dull” and “The Magic of Compound Creativity”—we’ve included bonus “best-of-the-best” ads to underscore two critical lessons for brands:
1. Defeating Dullness: We identified ads that achieved the lowest neutrality scores in their category, demonstrating a masterclass in eliciting emotional responses (both positive and negative). As highlighted in The Cost of Dull, neutrality is a creativity killer, and these ads showcase the strategies for ensuring emotional resonance.
2. Consistency in Creativity: From our Compound Creativity report, we spotlighted exceptional examples of brands harnessing long-term creative strategies—ads that build on recurring brand characters, distinctive assets, and enduring creative partnerships. Research proves that consistent brands consistently outperform their peers, with the gap widening over time. Quite simply, dullness and inconsistency come at a cost no brand can afford.
Now, it’s time to unveil the Nation’s Favourite Ads of 2024 and celebrate the creative teams behind these standout campaigns. Let’s honour the very best in advertising excellence!
We recognise how challenging it can be to create emotionally compelling and creative ads, depending on the category you’re in. Categories like chocolate and ice cream naturally drive strong appeal, consistently achieving high scores, while others face more hurdles. This year, we’re celebrating the ads that stood out the most, outperforming their category averages with exceptional creativity that positions the brand for commercial success.
The Charity category is known for generating low levels of neutrality and high emotional intensity, leading to a significant spike in short-term sales and donation potential. However, in terms of long-term effectiveness, it scores among the lowest, with 69% of the category achieving just a 1-Star Rating, indicating no market share change. Achieving a maximum Star Rating in such a challenging category is a phenomenal accomplishment—one that truly deserves the title of Nation's Favourite!
Disney knows emotion better than anyone—they’re famous for it! Unlike many brands in their category, Disney’s distinctive, storytelling-first approach truly stands out, outperforming the category average by an impressive 3.2 Stars. In 2024, Disney achieved one of the highest Emotional Dynamism Index scores, meaning their ad took consumers on a literal rollercoaster of emotions, keeping them deeply engaged throughout.
Aardman brought their magic to the BBC last year with their Wallace and Gromit idents, helping the broadcaster achieve a rare feat—a maximum star rating! It’s uncommon for TV broadcasters to reach this level, let alone idents. The nostalgic charm and craftsmanship of Aardman ensured these short spots captivated audiences between shows while perfectly teasing their upcoming movie, “Vengeance Most Fowl.”
Amazon’s success is built on many factors, but their dedication to exceptional storytelling is a standout. By championing everyday heroes, they craft simple, relatable narratives grounded in universal human truths—consistently delivering strong performances. Their work also highlights the power of in-house creativity, proving that talented teams can deliver exceptional results time and again.
Barbour’s 2024 Christmas campaign, featuring another Shaun the Sheep collaboration, stood out in the leisurewear category. Once again, Aardman Studios delivered a standout performance, using their distinctive animation style and nostalgic characters to elevate brands through emotional appeal and a unique visual identity.
2024 was a year of major brand birthdays, with Cadbury, McDonald’s, and Walls celebrating milestone anniversaries. Walls stood out in its category by delivering exceptional emotional appeal—a significant achievement in one of the most inherently engaging categories in our database. Its uplift versus the category average was the highest non-Christmas performance of the year.
Tourism Australia made a strong return with their Kangaroo fluent device, standing out in an already emotive category. The familiar brand character remains a year-on-year success, showcasing the power of consistent and distinctive storytelling – proof that standing out within an emotional category is possible after all!
Fluent device characters continue to prove their value as a standout strategy, with Comparethemarket.com delivering another strong performance. This year, they introduced a comedic Wombat cousin to join their iconic meerkats, who consistently excel in emotional appeal and distinctiveness within the Insurance Comparison category. The meerkats are a testament to the power of characters in transforming a low-appeal, challenging category.
Starling Bank stood out in a typically low-appeal category, where the average ad scored just 2.4 Stars, and none reached 5-Stars in 2024. Among the top 2% of ads achieving 4.0 Stars or higher, Starling Bank’s success was driven by strong humour, a simple narrative, and clear messaging—proving the power of effective storytelling even in challenging categories.
This is a perfect example of breaking free from category stereotypes and a standout case of our Shifting Gears research in action. By leaning into their identity as the "People's Car," Volkswagen focuses on championing people, rather than following the typical product-centric approach of the category. The result? An ad that’s both distinctive and highly relevant to the brand.
2024 saw unique campaigns and ads with standout qualities truly shine. Our collaborative work with ITV explored topics like representation in advertising, sustainability, and the challenges of breaking through as a new-to-TV advertiser—qualities that are tough to get right. We also witnessed the rise of new tools like AI, while some brands opted to master creative elements such as music and character to drive impact. So, who stood out on these creative qualities? Let’s find out!
Dove’s Real Beauty campaign, launched in 2004, has consistently challenged unrealistic beauty standards. In a world increasingly shaped by AI-generated “perfect” models, it remains a timely reminder of Dove’s mission to celebrate real beauty. This ongoing commitment, strong brand message, and exceptional execution deserve recognition.
Returning to screens after over a decade, Jammie Dodgers are a standout example of embracing a unique brand personality to break through on TV. By adhering to many of the principles System1 identified in ITV’s Breakthrough research, Jammie Dodgers shine in a category where first-year advertisers typically score just 2.4 Stars. Their use of showmanship helped them break through with a memorable impact.
A 15-second digital ad campaign is challenging enough to capture emotional engagement, let alone a 5-minute safety briefing. Yet, in their latest safety video, British Airways sparked a remarkable response, achieving the highest emotional dynamism of 2024. This means consumer emotions shifted the most throughout the 5 minutes, a significant achievement for a typically functional and disengaging category.
To celebrate 200 years of consistent customer commitment, Cadbury repurposed their 2018 “Mum’s Birthday” campaign, achieving an exceptional Star Rating. With their signature brand codes and storytelling style, this ad reinforces that Cadbury truly knows their customers. It was the happiest ad on System1’s Premium Ad Database in 2024, outperforming the Christmas buzz with a whopping 74% happiness!
Celebrities shone brightly in 2024, with one of the standout partnerships being Santander’s long-standing collaboration with Ant and Dec, focusing on their rival bank, Antanddec. Ant and Dec are a prime example of using celebrities effectively, leaning into their familiar personalities and humour, and returning as winners among consumers.
Characters are a proven way to drive emotional appeal and category distinctiveness, so it’s only fitting to celebrate brands that leverage this strategy. In 2024, Funky Pigeon introduced a new character and saw strong performance as a result. Fun, unique, and brand-centric, it’s a fantastic example of how to soar with a fluent device!
Humour remains one of the rarest features in advertising and has steadily declined over the years. Yet, as identified by Orlando Wood in Lemon and Look Out, it is also the most effective form of happiness for driving long-lasting business effects. This year, Irn Bru stood out as a top contender, using irony, satire, and misplaced hope to create a comedic and unexpected campaign—one that was perfectly aligned with its brand. Despite the rarity of humour in ads, Irn Bru’s approach shows how it can still be a powerful tool for brand differentiation and impact.
Storytelling emerged as a winning recipe for brands in 2024, with a focus on universal human truths like family, love, connection, and compassion driving highly emotional campaigns that resonated widely. One standout was OXO, with a simple yet powerful narrative featuring a father and daughter. This campaign topped the effectiveness charts, offering a key lesson for brands: sometimes, simplicity is the key. By focusing on how their products enhance everyday pleasures, brands can create more meaningful connections with their audience.
Surprise is a key emotion measured by System1, positively influencing star ratings. In 2024, brands averaged 11% surprise, but Doritos broke the charts with 27% in their stereotype-defying campaign. As highlighted in our Wise Up! report, over-55s are rarely shown in advertising with independence, humour, and agency—three qualities Doritos nailed. This campaign serves as a lesson for brands to break free from stereotypes around age, gender, and ethnicity, showing that all audiences want to be entertained and represented in an empowering, fun way.
Disgust is one of the rarest emotions in advertising, accounting for just 1% of emotions in 2024. While most brands shy away from this feeling, Pot Noodle embraced it to create one of the spikiest campaigns of the year. With the highest percentage of disgust at 30% and exceptional short-term sales potential, it proved that any emotion is more powerful than none. This campaign highlights the importance of using emotions to stand out and drive sales, showing how brands can leverage even the most unexpected feelings to be distinctive.
In the UK this year, Christmas ads averaged an impressive 4.3 stars, making it a consistently high-performing time of year as brands and advertisers deliver their most emotive work to drive seasonal sales and long-term market share. These ads often tap into a range of emotions, creating compelling and dynamic journeys that make us laugh, cry, and smile. Here are the sensational stars that stole Christmas this year:
Cutting through in sports advertising is no easy feat. Our research with sports and entertainment marketing agency Fuse, in the Sport Dividend report, revealed that, on average, sports ads score just 2.4 stars among a broad audience, despite the excitement surrounding these events. This year, however, has seen phenomenal performances across major events like the Euros and Paris Olympics, with brands stepping up to create emotionally resonant campaigns that truly connect with audiences. Below is the effectiveness podium for 2024:
In his collaborative research with Adam Morgan from EatBigFish and Peter Field, Jon Evans explored quantifying dull advertising by analysing consumers’ emotional responses from System1’s premium database. “Neutrality” emerged as the most prominent emotion, and when audiences feel nothing, they do nothing—hindering sales potential both in the short and long term. We examined ads by category—some from more “dull” categories than others—to identify which brands were defying dullness and standing out for commercial impact against the competitive set. Here’s what we found:
In one of the most neutral categories, Broadband Providers, Virgin proves that defying dullness is all about breaking free from category conventions. By unleashing an emotive campaign, they achieved just 27% neutrality—half the category average—showing the power of bold, unconventional storytelling.
Returning for a second year, Morrisons’ Gloves continue to drive massive emotional appeal as the brand’s latest characters. Who would have thought a humble household object could combat dullness and cut the Supermarket category’s average neutrality of 48% in half?
Fragrance is a category often dominated by similar, indistinguishable ads, but this campaign is a brilliant example of how breaking from the status quo can pay off. With a low neutrality score of just 23%, it stands out as the most emotional campaign in the category.
2024 brought exciting new collaborations in the world of outdoor advertising, with our partnership with JCDecaux providing deeper insights into outdoor effectiveness, showcased in our monthly column with OOH Today. This year, we saw the highest-ever outdoor Star Rating achieved, as brands rose to the challenge of creating standout, well-branded ads that captured attention in just two seconds—a crucial feat for outdoor creatives. Now, let’s celebrate the Nation’s Favourite Outdoor Ads of the year:
In 2024, System1 launched Compound Creativity, using the IPA Databank to showcase the compounding commercial impact of consistency in advertising. From enduring agency-brand partnerships to creative codes like character, colour, and tone, as well as consistency across the media mix, these elements drive long-lasting business effects. To celebrate the brands leading the way for a more consistent 2025, here are some consumer consistency highlights:
Yorkshire Tea is one of the UK's most consistent brands, celebrated for its long-lasting ads (averaging a two-year lifespan), enduring agency partnership, and signature visual and narrative codes. This unwavering approach earned them recognition as a standout brand in our Compound Creativity report with the IPA. Their 2022 ad, "Tina’s Leaving Do," featuring Patrick Stewart, exemplifies this consistency. Running through 2024, the ad is a masterclass in maintaining the brand’s iconic witty narrative style and distinctive codes.
Since launching their "Make it Sparkle" brand platform in 2023, Very has continued to leverage their distinctive pink flamingos in 2024, achieving the highest score for TikTok ads with their "Toys" campaign featuring Coral the flamingo, a cut-down version of the TVC. The brand also re-aired their Christmas creative for a second year, delivering exceptional results.
Returning with Dawn French for Christmas and Tom Kerridge in their Farm to Foodhall series, Marks & Spencer demonstrated the power of creative consistency in 2024. Achieving an average Star Rating of 3.9, they stood out for their emotional appeal, familiarity, and strong creative foundations.
Thatchers has extended its collaboration with Aardman Studios into 2024, continuing to release visually striking campaigns during cricket and football broadcasts. Originally launched in 2023, these well-crafted ads have established a distinctive identity for the brand, consistently outperforming the category average of 3-Stars.
Though many brand characters make an appearance at Christmas in the UK, few maintain their presence year-round. One brand that has successfully done so is Argos, with the introduction of characters Connie and Trevor. Since launching these characters, Argos has seen a significant boost in effectiveness, thanks to consistent communication across all channels.
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Test Your Ad Premium subscribers can access the full list of Nation’s Favourite Ads in our database, plus additional standout ads from Christmas, Outdoor, the Olympics and other key cultural events.