As the silly season comes to a close, we take a look at the different Christmas ad campaigns that have grace our TV screens.
Thanks to John Lewis and its Christmas ad of 2011, which didn’t even overtly showcase any of the company’s products but told the tale of a young boy impatient for December 25th so he could give his parents their presents, the months of November and December have been a battle ground for brands eager to prove that their festive ad offering is the best.
Every year since 2011, companies have competed to wrest the crown from John Lewis’s lofty head – and although the John Lewis ad is yet to land and tug at our heartstrings, we’ve already seen some campaigns hit our screens. Here are just a few of them that could well inspire you to chat to your Thames Valley PR company to see if you could benefit from doing something similar next year.
The Big Night
Sainsbury’s
The supermarket’s 2018 ad features a school Christmas show where a child prodigy performs a version of New Radicals’ You Get What You Give, 90 seconds of hard-hitting emotion… which is what Christmas ads seem to be all about!
That said, some criticism has come its way from social media users who have pointed out that it smacks a little bit of a recent John Lewis ad where school kids perform Bohemian Rhapsody.
There’s A Rang-tan In My Bedroom
Iceland
No doubt you’ve already heard about and watched Iceland’s Christmas campaign, making use of an old Greenpeace video with Emma Thompson doing the voiceover. The controversy surrounding this ad, which has seen it banned from TV screens for being too political, has also seen it go viral online – arguably an even better result for the brand than if the ad had been aired on TV.
Duelling chickens and turkeys
KFC
Going for the funny bone, KFC’s Christmas ad sees a chicken head out on a cold and wintry journey where it comes across its festive nemesis, a turkey. The two birds engage in fisticuffs but the chicken emerges victorious, with the TV ad accompanied by billboards saying: “The trick to enjoying Christmas turkey? Lowering your expectations”.
It’s all about gift-giving
Debenhams
In a similar vein to the famed 2011 John Lewis ad, this offering from Debenhams celebrates the act of giving the perfect gift and the joy the person giving it gets from finding something just right for the ones they love.
“Shoppers told us that the real joy of shopping comes from discovering the gift that you know the recipient is going to really love. We wanted to celebrate that moment,” Debenhams managing director of beauty and marketing Richard Cristofoli was quoted by the Independent as saying.