Tesco Finds The Joy of Mess

Christmas ads usually chase perfection: gleaming tables, coordinated families, snow-dusted streets. This year, Tesco decided to do the opposite. Their festive campaign celebrates the chaos, the small disasters, the unpolished moments that actually make the season feel real. “The Christmas spirit isn’t found in those picture-perfect moments,” says BBH’s deputy CSO Saskia Jones. “It’s in the messy, chaotic, unscripted stuff. That’s the real magic."

Rather than one sweeping story, the campaign is a series of vignettes, each capturing different slices of festive life. From minor domestic disasters to hyper-specific family quirks, the approach ensures every viewer sees a bit of themselves reflected on screen. The insight was simple but powerful: people are already living this truth, so the work doesn’t invent reality but instead it celebrates it.

The campaign’s ambition didn’t stop at the screen. Tesco’s cards, F&F jumpers, and other physical products are woven into the idea from the start, not slapped on as merchandising. “A jumper designed to answer an awkward family question is just another funny, honest way of expressing the central truth,” Jones explains. In other words, chaos isn’t just the story; it’s the platform.

Saskia Jones talks us through the thinking behind the campaign, the challenges of turning festive chaos into warmth and humour, and why Tesco’s approach could redefine how seasonal marketing connects with culture.

Creative Salon: What cultural or behavioural insight told you that audiences were ready for a “perfectly imperfect” Christmas? 

Saskia Jones: The wonderful thing was that we tapped into a truth that people were already talking about. The main insight was that the Christmas spirit isn't found in those picture-perfect moments you see a lot of during the festive season. It's in the messy, chaotic, unscripted stuff, that's the real magic. The insight told us that without those moments, it wouldn’t be Christmas. People are already living this reality, so the campaign was simply giving a name to the truth of their lives at this time of year.

The campaign is built from multiple standalone vignettes rather than a single hero film. What was the strategic thinking behind using lots of small, relatable moments instead of the traditional one-story ad?

The idea demanded it. You can't capture the full truth and diversity of families across the entire country in just one story. To make everyone feel seen, we wanted to use multiple vignettes, mixing super-relatable moments with those more niche, hyper-specific ones. This way, Tesco truly owns its position as the brand that is the fabric of the nation.

Tesco has brought the idea into physical products, like cards and jumpers, which is unusual for a Christmas campaign. When and how did the decision happen to make the campaign shop-able? Was product integration part of the idea from the start?

It wasn't a bolt-on; it was baked in from the start. The core idea was so strong and flexible that it naturally lended itself to all the creative elements, the films, the OOH, the partnerships and the products. A jumper designed to answer an awkward family question ("Yes, I’m still single") is just another funny, honest way of expressing the central truth. It was a seamless way to let customers tap into the creative concept of the campaign right in the store.

Those products feel like extensions of the creative, not merch. How did BBH, Tesco’s product teams, and design collaborate so that the jumpers and cards feel like "campaign thinking" and not bolt-ons?

The focus was always on the shared truth of the chaos. The F&F jumpers and the Robin Shaw Christmas cards were literally designed to be functional, tongue-in-cheek extensions of the campaign's humour. When the idea is strong, the execution is easy. You're just using a different vehicle (a jumper vs. a 30-second film) to deliver the same, relatable punchline. 

You’re effectively turning everyday festive chaos into a brand platform. What were the internal conversations around tone? How did you land on warm humour rather than cynicism, especially given the cost-of-living backdrop?

We were chasing the ‘it’s funny, cos its true’ moments. The goal wasn't to outrage or offend - it's Christmas and it's Tesco. The insights all came from things that people told us it wouldn’t be Christmas without, so they all naturally came from a warm place. The director, Jeff Low nailed the tone by shooting it like a mini-drama, not trying too hard to be funny, letting the scenario and insights play out so the audience could recognise themselves, rather than feel like they were being joked at. John Bishop's delivery kept everything grounded and prevented the stories from turning into sketches.

Many Christmas ads exist in a bubble, separate from the reality of shopping. How consciously did you try to blur the line between advertising, retail and experience - and what does that signal about how Tesco wants to show up culturally?

This was a deliberate move to show that Tesco is part of the entire festive journey. The campaign wasn't just on TV; it followed the customers: buses wrapped in not quite enough wrapping paper and petrol pumps giving tailored messages about the drive to see family. This highly integrated, contextual media plan was designed to put Tesco at the heart of a variety of moments during the festive period. It signals that Tesco is intrinsically part of Christmas in the UK, showing up for all the messy bits, as well as the main meal.

What have you learned from this year’s integrated approach that might shape how Tesco does seasonal work in the future?

The big lesson is the power of a single, dimensional insight. By treating the idea as channel agnostic and strong enough to live equally well as a film, a physical product, or a piece of OOH, we helped maximise the campaign's reach and impact. In this case, a truly integrated model that proved that true diversity and relatability are best captured through multiple, specific stories.

Find out more about this year's Tesco Christmas campaign.