Back in the day, an ad just got released and as a tv-watching nation we all just watched them as a collective captive audience as they popped up in the middle of Coronation Street. To have a press release to accompany the release of an ad is making the whole industry of Christmas ads into an activity in its own right. And that just seems a bit weird.
But we digress…
What do we think of this year’s batch?
The Boots Christmas ad has been catching a lot of controversy and chatter since release. This year’s ad leans into gender identity politics, with a sumptuous scene that looks like it’s just borrowed the set of Willy Wonka or The Greatest Showman. Lots of people are calling out the judgement of Boots, because of the lead actress in the ad who infamously called the Royal family balcony “terribly white”. Other people are annoyed at the they/them references along with the appearance of lots of queer and trans people in the ad, a number of whom are social media influencers for the brand.
When it comes to the actual ad, it looks pretty but the music is annoying and the script is boring.
If we wanted to delve deeper, on the one hand the scene that plays out is elvish and fantastical as we would all expect Santa’s workshop to be. However it is also circus-like, and circuses are only a few steps away from the traditional ‘freak shows’ that used to roll with travelling circuses – a place for the underworld and the misfits. As far as subtexts go, this doesn’t sit very well with the inclusivity message. Plus, with all the effort to be non-normative, celebrating a Christian Christmas is very normy.
All of the above is getting the ad attention for all the “wrong reasons”, but as Oscar Wilde said, “There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”. And that’s the whole point of an ad, after all.
🔗 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncTd0Wfk6QE
Kevin, the carrot returns!
All male voice actors who have Dumbledore/Gandalf/Santa Claus tones will have been run off their feet this time of year, and the Aldi ad has employed such an actor to give a Father Christmas vibe.
Kevin and friends set off on a mission to save the spirit of Christmas, via a couple of risque jokes along the way.
It’s Christmassy, and it’s fun! We like!
🔗 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ1vQesB9hk
Released *the actual moment* that Halloween was over, and we are loving the first comment on the YouTube version of this ad that says, “Halloween ended literally three minutes ago. Respect for the early grind.”
The Sainsbury’s Christmas ad features the BFG, and Sophie… but Sophie the shop floor worker from Sainsbury’s who is just clocking in for her shift. They go on a BFG-style adventure to provide a tableau for traditional Christmas fayre, whilst slipping in some handy references to the local provenance of some of their food.
It’s familiar and it is warm, it’s cinematic and has an emotional narrative arc set to soaring violins. It’s everything that people want out of a Christmas ad. Giving everybody the warm and fuzzies, in the hope that nobody notices that it costs a lot more to shop at Sainsbury’s than your local Aldi.
🔗 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8dczAGg-Qg
There are two!
There is a food one, starring Dawn French as a curmudgeon who hates Christmas and can’t be bothered with it, also starring Dawn French as a Christmas fairy who comes along to save the day.
Incongruously, the day that needs to be saved is Dawn French’s entire neighbourhood turning up for a Christmas party that she clearly invited them to. We know this isn’t going to be put forward for a Booker prize or anything, but stories do have to follow logic.
But if we ignore that point of pedantry… Hmm…s’okay.
There’s also a clothing one, which is as far removed from the Dawn French ad as can be. And it’s very confused. The clothing ad starts with a young black girl wearing all the glitter, but sat in a dismally lit home. Her mum appears to be white and quite old to mother a child that age, and there are other well-dressed people spotted too. Once the girl shakes the snow globe to get the party going, the whole house (that turns out to be mansion-like in proportion) ends up getting infested with a swarm of models all dressed fabulously for Christmas in M&S clothing and lots of gold and silver lame.
Who are these people? Why are they all adults and why are there no more children other than the girl that starts it all off in the first place? Is it a party? Why are there models dotted around the house lying on chaise lounges, and hanging out in bedrooms? What don’t any of them seem to like or know each other? So many questions, including why didn’t they leave this idea at the storyboard?
The food one 👉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTTzlhq82tE
The clothes one 👉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVHiDpPXako
Would it be safe to say that John Lewis is the company that started all this Christmas ad official release nonsense? Or did they inspire everyone else to up their game?
The Yorkshire Post have gone as far as writing a whole piece ranking all the John Lewis Christmas ads from best to worst from 2007 to date. You can take a read of that here 👇
https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/whats-on/john-lewis-christmas-adverts-ranked-4855173
And at time writing it’s actually very difficult to find it. There are lots of things on YouTube that are inspired by JL, but the real Christmas ad doesn’t seem to have been released yet.
Amazon have a Christmas ad. Who knew?
Just like Amazon don’t need to advertise their service due to their ubiquitous presence and through the fact that they always win on price point, they probably don’t need to advertise themselves as a Christmas shopping service either because duh-huh, apart from Santa, who else delivers more Christmas parcels?
This ad is a strange one. A warm, always-going-to-win-hearts rags to riches type story about a caretaker who has a talent. Lovely and warm that his colleagues shower him with love too, with the solo Amazon reference to ordering him a Tux jacket to dress him for a spotlight moment on stage. But this ad could’ve run at any time in the year. Take a look and see what you think for yourself.
🔗 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecV3E779MfU
Morrisons being Morrisons, they are leaning into their Yorkshire heritage with a song sung in broad Yorkshire tones. The chorus line is made up of oven glove puppets and there is *all the food* laid out to Bugsy Malone, and the turkey doesn’t even get a look in until the end.
It’s a fun romp through an ad whose brief was ‘get as much of our food crammed into it as possible’.
🔗 https://youtu.be/zPRt0TPbPWg?si=TaHkLoK3HzZtp3Ez
Ooh! Like this one!
Part one has been released and it’s got a cast of characters from big screen and little screen to act out a murder-mystery where the victim is the Christmas pudding (it’s actually a chilled dessert ☝️)
It bucks against all the other regular format Christmas ads bringing something different and original. Stayed tuned for part two 👀
🔗 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4Ll30xiwAU
This Christmas ad has all the hallmarks of traditional Christmas ad, with a little bit of magical and fantastical thrown in for good measure to keep the viewer viewing.
When you don’t know where it is going we then get to the crescendo, and it’s then lovely to arrive at a toy bank message where Lidl are choosing to use their Christmas ad to get people to think about others. Bravo!
🔗 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iPshsgPC9w
At the ad brainstorming meeting for this year’s Christmas ad, someone floated the mechanic of gnomes, it won and they then fully committed to the cause.
As a confirmed gonk-hater, gnomes are just the gaudy British cousins, so hold zero charm, even if we’re hoping for a kitsch-cutesy reaction.
The haters are out in the comments on YouTube too, though clearly the gnome mechanic is a little bit Marmite, with others saying how much they love it.
Meh.
🔗 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6HITAAtPEI
So relatable.
Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year. It’s also a nightmare, especially when surrounded by sugar-overloaded and over-stimulated kids. Love the cut in to the horrific underbelly of being made to spend concentrated time with your nearest and dearest at this special time of the year.
Matalan gets it, and Matalan have got your back. Check it out 👇
🔗https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtMy-V0zS84
Harvey Nic’s commissioned a team that worked with Tim Burton for their ad, so you’re going to get a Hollywood style animation as a result.
If you love Tim Burton, you will love this ad. If you find Tim Burton a bit creepy, maybe you won’t love it so much. There’s no doubt though, that getting world-class input creates an ad packed full with original thought.
A memorable ad (and isn’t that what it’s all about?) but not so memorable when it comes to brand codification. The Harvey Nichols part of the ad fades in the memory much quicker than this animated bot’s Christmas adventure.
🔗https://youtu.be/8Lz81wNCBo8?si=AcZJukjzzIpH03xy
Do you love an ad that starts with a farting alpaca? Then TK Maxx have got your back.
Apparently, the ‘Festive Farm’ TK Maxx Christmas advert was so popular last year that they wanted to roll it out for another year! Starring an alpaca, two Indian runner ducks, a hedgehog and a goat bedecked in TK Maxx fashion specials (that you are guaranteed to not be able to find if you go and have a rummage in your local store!). Off they trot into the countryside, apropos of nothing before the alpaca closes the scene by sneezing out the festive candle at the end.
Would’ve loved to have been a fly on the wall at that creative briefing session!
What’s more, T K Maxx now have a range of festive farm character toys for sale, with £2.50 from the sale of each going to its charity partner, The King’s Trust. And in other news, the brand is also teaming up with popular Instagram and TikTok account ‘Sylvanian Drama’, which will document a behind-the-scenes look as the animals prepare for party season. And, there’ll be drama, of course.
It’s safe to say that replaying last year’s Christmas ad and focussing their budget on TikTok is a smart move made by the brand, and we’ll be looking forward to seeing how well their Christmas campaign is received in Sylvanian form!
🔗https://youtu.be/rg5uScxZWSo?si=wJT0CZDh0CPphk8e
Greggs
In the art world, it’s called juxtaposition, meant to invite thought, challenge norms, and show up a difference between one element and another.
So Greggs went with a juxtaposition of their pasties with Nigella Lawson in their first-ever Christmas ad. Nigella does what Nigella does best, almost by now becoming a caricature of herself. Can’t imagine for a second that Ms. Lawson has ever stepped into a Greggs, but they’ve managed to pull off a memorable festive tongue-in-cheek celebrity endorsement. A winner, we think!
The team at Destination Digital have completed the oh-so-arduous task of reviewing all of the Christmas ads this year, and here are our favourites!
My favourite has to be the Waitrose ad, and having looked at all of them in this long list, it’s the one that I recall the best, for positive reasons.
It’s pulled away from the rest of the pack with some originality of format whilst not being as abstracted from the Christmas theme as, for instance, the TK Maxx ad does. Love the idea of rolling out a series of ads too, to make this murder-mystery drama into an actual series to tune in to for the next chapter. And who would have thought it? Waitrose actually made something that feels relatable to a wider audience, rather than pitched to their usual Chelsea tractor driving crowd.
Top of the list for recall in the meantime would be the Boots and the M&S food ads, though I don’t particularly like them. Recall is one of the most important metrics for ads, and even though the Boots ad has a lack of the warmth of Christmas, has irritating music and is a bit too worthy for my tastes, it also comes to mind straight away, whereas a lot of the others have blended a little and I would struggle to tell you which one was which.
Hannah’s
I have to agree with Debbie and Rachel, I think Aldi and Waitrose have topped the Christmas 2024 advert charts this year. I think playing on the name of the humble humbug sweet to make them the villains of the Aldi ad is genius. They’re already dressed for their thief role with their black and white stripes – just brilliant. The Waitrose approach to its campaign this year is also so clever and inventive. I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for part two for the conclusion of this Christmas mystery!
However, although it’s not a new advert for 2024, I love the TK Maxx one. It’s new to me (🤷♀️ I don’t watch terrestrial TV) and, despite not being the most in-your-face festive of the bunch, to me it does a brilliant job of representing the retailer’s ethos in a fun, engaging way that still encapsulates the giving spirit of Christmas. What’s not to love about a goose stepping out in a chic little headscarf, pearls and a pair of big, fluffy slippers? That’s mother (… goose). Also, as a long-time fan of Sylvanian Drama, I’m very excited to see what comes out of that collaboration.
As a former Asda employee, I feel like I need to also give the gnome-centric ad an honourable mention. Love them or loathe them, they definitely have their fans among regular Asda shoppers (would you believe people used to phone the store and ask to reserve specific gnomes when a new line of them dropped?). Personally, they were the bane of my existence – you’d regularly find them missing a hand or a nose – but it was always fun to see which gaudy seasonal designs they’d come up with next.
My question: when is one of these brands going to procure the rights and secure Robbie the Reindeer for a Christmas ad campaign?! It’s what the people (me) want.
Also, if I had a nickel for every time one of the festive ads in this line-up featured a song by Eve, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.
Ed’s
With Christmas adverts pouring onto our screens thick and fast, there has been a whole flurry of wonderful, touching, and pretty shocking new adverts.
Whether that be Aldi’s Kevin the Carrot advert, Freeman’s advert with Sophie Ellis Bextor or Greggs’ first-ever advert – there has been something for everyone, with so many more to come as the festive celebrations begin ramping up.
Despite all these cheerful and genius adverts, Lidl’s guerrilla marketing in this advert has well and truly caught my eye, and as a marketer, it just can’t be ignored (telling you all you need to know about how effective this advert is). No matter how old you are, I think you can all agree that the Coca-Cola Christmas adverts are iconic, (if not THE most iconic) with their twinkling truck being a staple of Christmas.
Lidl has laced up the boxing gloves this festive season as they go head-to-head with industry giant, Coca-Cola, with their “Freeway on the Freeway tour”. With the same idea as the Coke truck but with a budget supermarket twist, they have created their very own Christmas truck, branded with “Freeway cola” on the side instead of the traditional Coca-Cola branding.
Having commenced its tour last Thursday, the Freeway truck will be stopping at nine locations throughout the nation, handing out gift boxes, popular Lidl items, and £100 vouchers. I love a bit of Christmas controversy, and to see a soft drink minnow, like Lidl, getting in the ring with the heavyweight champion, Coca-Cola, has got me really interested. It is exciting to see what comes from this, and I can’t help but feel that the Coca-Cola bosses will be teeming with anger! 😬
Aldi’s Christmas ad is hands-down my favourite this year. It’s not trying to be anything but a fun, festive ad, with none of the hidden messages or societal reflections many brands try to go for. It’s brimming with Christmas spirit, led by none other than Kevin the Carrot, who’s practically become a Christmas icon in his own right. The ad is narrated by British actor Jim Broadbent, adding an extra dash of charm, and it’s filled with clever touches, like the mischievous “evil Humbugs” as a nod to Scrooge’s famous “Bah, humbug!” line.
During his mission impossible style mission to save Christmas, Kevin and his carrot companion, Katie, dash through an oven as it cooks a spread of Aldi’s Christmas food, a playful way to spotlight the brand’s festive range. And, of course, no Christmas spread would be complete without a special guest appearance from a Christmassy Cuthbert the Caterpillar – a cheeky nod to their rivalry with M&S.
Aldi never fails to deliver its message with a fun, light-hearted touch, which is exactly what’s needed at Christmas. Their ad brilliantly captures the festive spirit, staying true to the season with a focus on joy and togetherness rather than anything too serious or controversial. Kevin truly delivers on his mission to free the Christmas spirit, providing nothing but pure Christmas fun.
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