Every marketer wants to sleigh their Christmas creative to drive profit and market share growth. In 2022, 16 brands achieved 5-Stars – with five receiving Test Your Ads’ maximum rating of 5.9. In 2023, the festive season delivered even more brand-building gifts, with 20 brands securing 5-Stars, including seven scoring 5.9-Stars.
While it may be too early to put up the Christmas tree and decorations or start planning your gift lists and festive menus, it’s the perfect time to reflect on the Christmas campaigns and recurring themes that resonated with the UK public in 2023.
Join Jon Evans, Chief Customer Officer at System1 and host of the Uncensored CMO, for our creative effectiveness webinar. He was joined by Kate Waters, Director of Client Strategy & Planning, ITV; Ed Smith, GM Integrated Marketing Europe, Amazon; and Alison Hoad, Chief Strategy Officer, Publicis London.
Five years of 5-Star Christmas ads – no other brand aside from Coke and their Trucks can claim that, and certainly no other brand has managed it with new creative every time. Aldi’s Kevin the Carrot is an advertising phenomenon. The Kevin ads combine several of the elements we know to be particularly effective in advertising, like living characters, cultural references, humour and consistency. He really is Aldi’s golden ticket at Christmas, and now he’s back on top of our Nation’s Favourite charts.
Reissued almost every year – the trucks took a year off in 2022 – and you can see why. “Holidays are Coming” is a bellwether for Christmas performance. If it gets a maximum score, as it did this year, audiences are in the mood for festive fun. Coke’s perennial performer is also a testament to the wisdom of investing in a great ad. Now it feels like an old friend and the start of Christmas every year – but back in the 90’s it was just a good commercial. Coke backed it and turned it into a phenomenon.
Amazon are big believers in the power of story and use that storytelling to show off their core product benefit. This year’s “Joy Ride” is a heartwarming tale – three girls who grow up together and as older ladies remember the joy they used to feel going sledding. Thanks to Amazon, they get the chance to recreate that joy and race down a hill again together. As usual, the story is tightly and expertly told, and Amazon’s product is central to it but never allowed to overwhelm the emotion.
The Master Chocolatier strikes again with this reissue of his Christmas ad. Not that there’s many overt holiday season references getting in the way of the chocolate, the Chocolatier, and the delighted consumers. Lindt are one of the only brands who can get away with going easy on the Christmas elements – their Star Ratings are through the roof anyway thanks to a delicious product and ads which highlight the joy of consuming it. They’re also smart enough to keep effective work on screens.
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