The Christmas ad… what happened?

The Big Dance

I get to November and head straight to The Drum to check out this year’s new crop of Christmas ads. As someone in marketing, it’s THE time of year. The Christmas ad is sometimes filmed as early as June/July, and the planning for the next one begins almost as soon as we’re in the new year. It’s a big deal. They’re usually great.??

The holiday season, or Christmas as it’s sometimes called, is responsible for about 20-30% of a retail business’s total revenue. It’s a bit more complicated than that, as that’s mainly looking at US/UK data, but needless to say, whether you're an online or offline retailer, Christmas really is "the show" or "the big dance.”?

But I’ve not had the Christmas spirit for the last few years. Bah humbug. And it’s got nothing to do with Christmas itself; the terrible lack of imagination seems to be suffocating the advertising industry.?

Christmas Past

First, let’s talk about the holy grail of Christmas ads: John Lewis & Partners . I imagine advertising agencies up and down the land sat around the communal agency-office flat-screen TV, with FIFA turned off for a change, on or around the start of November, in hushed tones, waiting… just waiting, to see what marvel John Lewis and their esteemed partners has come up with this year. In years gone by, they have smashed every Christmas ad in a way that no one else has. I mean, Monty the Penguin back in 2014 definitely doesn’t feel like it was nearly 10 years ago. The exquisite mix of emotion, a sales hook, and beautiful filmography really just nailed it. This continued for some time with hit after hit. Some great advertising was made over the years. JL&P’s 14-year relationship with Adam&Eve cemented their place amongst the annuls of Christmas past. The Drum even reported that it was commercially a great success:

“The ads, according to Adam&Eve/DDB’s head of effectiveness Les Binet, “delivered over ￡1bn in extra sales revenue,” with an ROI ratio somewhere between 8:1 to 10:1.”

Inside The Breakup Of Adam&Eve And John Lewis | The Drum

Christmas Present (i.e., now, not a gift)

But sadly, this marvel doesn’t seem to have continued into Christmas Present. This year was just ‘meh’. To be fair to them, almost every Christmas ad this year was ‘meh.’ Like a kid who’s woken up on Christmas day to the wrong gift, I’m upset about it all.

Apart from the fact that now, with others trying to keep pace, every Christmas ad looks like a JL&P Christmas ad or just tries to overdo it on celebrity appearances ( 马莎百货 , Asda , Waitrose & Partners ; I mean, come off it), that’s not the real problem. The real problem seems to be a lack of imagination and a trend towards the mean. Middle-of-the-road fluff is now the name of the game. Try to tug on some heartstrings, over-feature your products (hopefully being held at 10-to-6 by a celeb), try to shoe-horn in some member benefits (I’m looking at you, 特易购公司 ), and join the parade of ads that all look the same and are trying to do the same thing. Sure, some buck the trend, KFC UK & Ireland and JD Sports Fashion come to mind, but they also seem to miss the mark slightly for different reasons.?

There’s no ignoring the fact that Christmas is a commercial event (in both definitions of the word), but what we’ve been left with is a string of adverts that are? totally abstract, with no brand connection, or something that’s all product-led and crammed into some odd story (usually about a journey, obviously; what’s Christmas without a journey?) Where has the creativity gone? I’ve not seen anyone do anything genuinely creative. Sure, there are a few really good ads this year that work perfectly well (unsurprisingly, Lidl GB , by The Romans , was great; everything they do is annoyingly good and feels like it actually gets closest to JL&P ads of yesteryear), but I can’t see where anyone has sat in a strategy meeting early in the year and said: “you know what, we’re going to do something different this year.” And this may bring us back to JL&P and Adam&Eve. They won that account after being in business for just over a year; they HAD to do something different and at the time, it really was. Whether it is now client briefs and agencies doing what they’re told because Christmas ads are big money and the whole network effect means a big Christmas ad is also a big media buy, or whether it’s a lack of imagination on the part of an agency that feels like they have to fit in more than go against the grain but I just can’t help but feel there needs to be a shake-up.?

Maybe this is more about the Christmas ad, maybe this is about creativity in general, maybe it’s about the question, ‘What is going to make more people consider our products this Christmas?’ Is an ad for Waitrose that seems remarkably similar to one from M&S going to make you switch where you do your big Christmas shop? Is a KFC ad that confirms they’re never going to make a Turkey burger going to make you want to visit KFC this Christmas? Is a Coca-Cola advert with lots of Santas in it going to make you buy more Coca-Cola than you already probably do? Is a heart-tugging ad for Amazon going to make you buy even more stuff from them than you already do, or is an off-beat ad for JD Sport going to make you go and buy in-store rather than from Amazon? My answer to all of these questions is, ‘I doubt it.’ So it begs a further question: what’s the point? If I still lived in the UK, I’d still be doing my Christmas shop in M&S, I’d still do 90% of my shopping on Amazon, and I’d still do a little in-store just to wander around London looking at all the lights. Nothing I’ve seen would alter my buying behaviour, and isn’t that what advertising is all about? Maybe it’s the medium… maybe a big-set piece TV ad just isn’t what’s needed anymore. In which case, what would replace it?

Christmas Future

In-store shopping has been declining for years. What if a supermarket chain moved its big Christmas ad budget into an engaging in-store experience? We tried to work on something like this earlier in the year, and it seemed like it would be amazing until the client decided it was ‘too much.’ They ended up launching something watered-down, and it obviously did nothing to move the needle because if you’re going to do something interesting and engaging, it has to be both things. Most Christmas shoppers do their shopping online (apparently, only 14% of people in the US plan to do all of their shopping in-store per NPD ), so why not create a magical online shopping experience that’s bespoke to Christmas? That big Christmas ad budget would go a long way if spent on interactive online shopping experiences. Then, what about personalisation? It’s a hot topic at the moment; the industry seems to talk about nothing else for most of the year, yet at a time when finding a personalised gift is probably the most relevant, it’s nonexistent. Imagine if that big Christmas ad budget was spent on giving people a unique opportunity to create and buy something bespoke.?

I’m not saying I have all the answers, but I just don’t think we live in the era of the big Christmas ad anymore. It’s overdone and dryer than most turkeys, and no one seems to be coming up with anything new. Next year, all I want for Christmas is a November with some bloody interesting advertising campaigns that aren’t about visits to Santa or celebrities decorating a tree while holding a festive food platter.?

Merry Christmas!