What Makes A Great Christmas Campaign?

It has been said many times that Christmas is the Super Bowl of the UK creative industry. Everyone has an opinion on every ad and nobody is afraid to share it. They all have a favourite.

Over the years there’s been a range of festive ads that have got everyone talking - whether that’s because of an accompanying song, a celebrity appearance, or how wacky the storyline and visuals were.

And it's one time of year when the public doesn't have quite the same level of ad fatigue. Recent research from Kantar has found that Christmas ads are increasingly popular amongst audiences which saw 9 per cent of individuals reveal they “love” festive TV ads and 56 per cent of people admit they look forward to seeing them on their screens - up from 48 per cent in 2023. 

This year, according to The Advertisement Association, £10.5 billion will be spent on Christmas campaigns - a 7.8 per cent increase from last year.

These campaigns are no small endeavor; what audiences first see on their screens in November marketers and creative agencies have plotted and planned for most of the year.

“We start in January so it seems to go all year-round,” BBH London’s CEO Karen Martin recently shared with BBC Radio 5’s ‘Wake Up To Money’. “You have to love Christmas. Usually you finish your campaign and it’s not over until 31 December. You can allow a few days off and then you come back and reflect on what happened over that time and get ready for the year ahead. We talk Christmas all year round.”

But when dissecting what makes a festive campaign ‘great’, what does that mean? Well, it could mean several things: audiences love and talk about it; it trends on social media; the song in the background enters the charts; and most importantly, of course, it drives sales. 

Take the advertising powerhouse that is John Lewis. Its reputation for having the festive ad everyone keeps an eye out for stems from its work with previous long-term creative partner adam&eveDDB - a relationship that lasted 13 years until 2022. The ad is now created by Saatchi & Saatchi, and Kantar reports that it's the seasonal ad that one in four people are still most excited by.

Charlotte Lock, customer director for John Lewis, reckons a great Christmas campaign comes from forming a connection with those watching, grounded by effective storytelling. 

“Great storytelling is something that I’ve long admired about John Lewis advertising,” Lock tells Creative Salon. “The freedom to tell a story and do so in a way that is visually and emotionally captivating. All the way back to the early days of ‘The Long Wait’ and ‘The Bear And The Hare’ – they’re short films and they don't try too hard to be adverts. They have the freedom to tell a story and connect emotionally and I think that is the secret sauce.”

Boots' chief marketing officer Pete Markey vouches for campaigns being not only memorable for audiences but providing elements of talkability. 

“Something memorable and distinctive, something that tells a story for your brand. But people will talk about it and go: ‘Have you seen this thing or that thing from this brand?’. That talkability is highly relevant,” he says. 

VML UK’s chief creative officer Ryan McManus, who led the creative development of the Boots campaign, agrees about the importance of making festive work memorable, but adds that making it fun and entertaining for viewers is also important to consider, since Christmas is a time of year where people want to be drawn in. 

“Ultimately, you want that sort of warm, festive feeling, but I think distinctiveness and relevance are the key things,” McManus says. “You want it to stand out, and you want people to go: ‘That's an ad for Boots!’ and then go: ‘Well, there's stuff that I want.’ ”

A Sense of Character

It's vital for brands to shift products off shelves during the busy gifting season, but that doesn't mean Christmas can't also be a time for ads to tell stories based around central characters rather than products. So far this year we've had Sainsbury’s ‘BIG Christmas’ from New Commercial Arts featuring Roahl Dahl’s The BFG; Boots’ ‘The Christmas Makeover’ from VML sees Brighteron star Adjoa Andoh lead as Mrs Claus; M&S Food takes a twist in actually including actor Dawn French, who usually simply provides the voiceover for its animated fairy. 

And then there is Waitrose’s ‘Sweet Suspicions’ - an Agatha Christie-esq whodunnit. Its use of character is one that exemplifies talkability with a star-studded cast including Succession star Matthew Macfadyen, Fleabag’s Sean Clifford and Sex Education’s Rakhee Thakrar. In that respect, it pays tribute to the murder mysteries of the 70s and 80s that involved a cornucopia of stars as suspects too.

Franki Goodwin, chief creative officer at Saatchi & Saatchi, told Creative Salon that choosing the actors came down to insights and data with a whole lot of instinct. “An ensemble cast is all about chemistry. You want to create a bit of magic.” 

Lock explains how characters play an important role in storytelling, alongside the choice of music and whether the story is animated or not. John Lewis won audiences over with the likes of ‘Buster The Boxer’ bounding on a trampoline in 2016, ‘Monty the Penguin’ in 2014 - which included Tom Odell’s ‘Real Love’ soundtrack, and ‘The Bear and The Hare’ in 2013 - which featured Lily Allen’s cover of ‘Somewhere Only We Know’; the ad was so popular that the song reached Number One in the UK charts.

Monty The Penguin marked the first year the retailer introduced collectable merchandise for its Christmas character - a strategy that has since become a tradition. Within an hour of the ad launching, ‘#montythepenguin’ was trending globally on Twitter and over 200,000 tweets had been produced. The overall launch of the campaign saw a total of 568 million impressions and once it had sold out in John Lewis stores the Monty toy was soon available on secondary markets like eBay for up to a whopping £500. 

Tesco is another brand that keeps character at its heart - especially with this year's campaign. In its ninth year collaborating with its creative agency BBH London, the brand has introduced  ‘Helping Feed Your Christmas Spirit’ which sees the world turning into gingerbread around its main character, Gary.

Felipe Guimaraes, deputy executive creative director at BBH London, tells Creative Salon that initial conversations did consider the idea of including a celebrity within its narrative, but decided that connectivity and an emotional storyline would work better with unknown actors that the audience could relate to. 

“We wanted things to get out of the way of that connection so made a collective decision that getting an incredible actor and allowing people to connect with the story was much more important that leveraging the fame of a famous actor.”

For him, it's this sense of honesty with audiences that makes a great Christmas campaign. “I think most of the Christmas ads that I loved and admired have that insight or that thing where you go: ‘That’s so true’,” Guimaraes explains. “I think brands have to build fame around Christmas because there has been a connection, and people like to put themselves into that."

He concludes: “That’s the learning we’ve taken, why we’re trying to often start from that place and then build all the other magic and theatre and epicness.”

Staying True To Brand Identity

When asked "What makes a great Christmas campaign?" Tesco marketers were in agreement. For Alicia Southgate, head of marketing, and Murray Bisschop, UK marketing director, staying true to your brand’s identity is the key ingredient. 

“It needs to be memorable, motivating and true,” Bisschop says, taking inspiration from his creative agency BBH. “If you can get those three things you’re in the right place.”

Southgate adds that those qualities provide the “best articulation” for a great Christmas campaign. “What I think is important - it needs to have heart. It needs to feel festive and it needs to feel like it comes from the brand, true to the brand.”

While considering what is true to a brand and its identity, the concept of change arises. Is change a good thing?

One particular brand that stays true to its roots every Christmas is Coca-Cola. Its ‘Holidays Are Coming’ ad first rolled out in 1995 and has become a seasonal staple ever since, featuring its famed trucks travelling through the snow-covered streets accompanied by its now classic jingle. This year, for the first time, that ad has been remade entirely using artificial intelligence. 

Islam ElDessouky, global VP of creative strategy and content for The Coca-Cola Company, says the assumption that everything new that brands do will resonate and help growth is wrong. 

“Humanity is overall built on familiarity; there are a lot of habits and familiarity that architect how we behave,” he says. “So for a brand like Coca-Cola almost 140 years old, obviously we’ve done a lot of things right in the past and there is a lot of stuff that didn’t work out, but consistency is key because it gives you the return on your investment.” 

ElDessouky, who is passionate about brand consistency, believes that has been for Coca-Cola, the Holy Grail for success. 

Change is a razor’s edge for creativity, but when it comes to Christmas campaigns, as long as the work has a story rich with emotion, features a character that audiences can attach feelings to, and remains true to the roots of the brand's identity, then there's a strong chance it will be effective, driving sales at this vital time of year.