Research: Christmas Adverts 2018

It’s Christmas which in PR land means one thing: Christmas campaigns. Whilst our campaigns are often subtle forms of promotion, boosting awareness of brands through messages and stories in #broadcastdays or #newsgeneration campaigns, the most recognizable types of PR are often TV adverts. It’s therefore no surprise that Christmas Adverts are big news in our industry.

Every festive season the PR world tunes in to seasonal telly and is given a masterclass in creative excellence. But we’re also thrown in to a world of critical analysis. Everyone’s a critic, remember, but when it’s your industry you can’t help but judge that little bit harder. We all have our favourite ads and others that we think didn’t deliver and you can’t help but let everyone know.

But what about those that don’t work in PR? What adverts resonated well with them? We polled 2,000 UK adults to find out which Christmas ads they loved this year.

Overall it turns out we’re a nation of bah humbugs, with the majority of people (27%) not having a favourite. Well there’s not pleasing some people.

But not everyone was so negative, and the results at the top were pretty close. This year’s winner was Aldi and the return of the ever popular Kevin the Carrot with 16% of the vote. This year the advert see’s Kevin and his family take on the world of fairytales (all set around the Christmas dinner table). Kevin’s popularity peaked with the 45-54 year olds, with 20% voting it their favourite festive ad of the year. It was also the favourite advert of female participants with 21%.

Second place went to ‘Elton John Lewis’ with 14%. John Lewis’ adverts, normally the source of much speculation and hype (and usually tears), normally rank quite highly with people when it comes to Yule Tide advertising, so its second place ranking is to be expected. Somewhat unexpected however is its popularity amongst younger respondents, with 18-24 year olds voting it their favourite ad (17%). However the high score amongst younger generations may reflect the ever popularity of Elton John and the love of a good ‘pull at the heart strings’ story around Christmas time.

Third spot was taken by Sainsbury’s The Big Show with 7%. The supermarket’s advert, although festive and heartwarming has received a fair amount of bad press over the past few weeks, with concerns over the appropriateness of ‘plug boy’. Despite this however it still seems to be fairly popular with our panel.

There were some regional differences in the data. The Heathrow Airport Bears were Northern Irelands favourite (15%), followed by Visa’s All I Want for Christmas sing-a-long (12%). However in the East Midlands and Scotland, the Visa advert received 0% of the vote.  Amazon’s Singing Boxes were more popular in London than the rest of the country (11%), taking second place for the region behind John Lewis (14%).