What are the most successful and memorable Christmas ads of recent times?

If you haven’t yet finished the final touches to your Christmas campaign, we’ve selected 8 of the very best Christmas ads to give you some inspiration – and entertainment.

 

Aldi – ‘A Christmas Carrot’

How can we forget Kevin and his adventures with the other carrots? Aldi has been creating these adverts since 2016 and Kevin features in many mini stories. Aldi’s TV adverts promoting Christmas food was so memorable, the German supermarket created a range of soft toys, which sometimes sold out in minutes within the stores. This is why it makes our list of great Christmas campaigns.

 

Google Santa Tracker micro-site

Google is known for its creative ideas to commemorate events across the world. You’ve probably seen the logo changed to recognise an event or holiday. So it just had to come up with something different for Christmas. The Google Santa Tracker was one of the best campaigns and best use of its own website.

This is obviously on a huge scale but it provides inspiration for playing around with your own business website. If you receive a lot of traffic on your own website, you can always create a Christmas-themed landing page for some fun. Ideas such as ‘find the snowball’ or ‘find the presents on our website to unlock a special offer’ can work really well, especially on an e-commerce website, as you encourage users to explore every corner of your website.

 

Starbucks red-themed cup

A little bit themed products here, but on a huge scale. Starbucks had some limited edition Christmas drinks such as Gingerbread Lattes, which were served in these large red cups. They caught on, and even had a hashtag set up called #starbucksredcup, so people could photo their drinks and share. This was an organically- boosted campaign, which is why it makes our list. You may have a product that could benefit from limited-edition Christmas packaging? It doesn’t have to be red, if that’s not your brand colour.

 

Toys ‘R’ Us TV ad

Attractive to both parents and children alike, by playing to children’s base desire for toys and parents’ sense of sharing something with their children, this was a very catchy ad, mainly due to its memorable cartoon imagery and playful theme tune. It’s on our list as we think it was very clever to appeal to both parents and children at the same time.

Although it’s difficult to do this as any other business, it’s really worth getting to know your ideal customers and target markets: what do they like at Christmas, what would appeal to them, and their age/gender/values?

 

Ted Baker

Moving away from TV ads for a moment, this time it’s a hashtag adventure…

In 2014, Ted Baker launched one of the best social media Christmas campaigns through Instagram. Even the hashtag itself was a great play on words: #TedsElfie. The idea was to locate Santa’s missing elves by clicking through various clues and accounts on the platform to win Ted Baker goodies. It was a great way to increase engagement with the brand and on social media. Users were encouraged to “Leave a comment on this image with #TedsElfie and you could win 1 of those Ted Baker hip flasks buried in the snow.”

This was such a creative use of social media that it definitely deserves a place on our list. You should get creative on your social media. It doesn’t have to be on this scale but Christmas is a brilliant time to increase engagement with your brand and have some fun, and possibly offer some prizes if your budget can stretch to it. A Facebook competition is highly recommended as it can work wonders at Christmas.

 

John Lewis – Monty the Penguin

Video is big business at Christmas. We recommend that you don’t skip on the creativity in your festive marketing. Pre-roll ads on Youtube work really well. You can take inspiration from many TV ads like this one, although it doesn’t have to be such a tearjerker with a penguin!

Monty the Penguin was a John Lewis TV ad in 2014, which tells the story of a young boy’s friendship with his penguin, Monty who longs for a girlfriend. We won’t spoil the ending, but take another look and you’ll see why it’s on our list of best Christmas campaigns.

 

ASOS

Okay so this isn’t specifically a campaign, but it’s a small piece in a bigger campaign. ASOS is known for sparkly dresses, suits, wild accessories and clothing. But here the look and feel is minimal, stripped back, and it has a clear message.

What we’re saying here is don’t overthink your Christmas emails. Too much text can ‘muddy the waters’ and viewers can quickly lose interest. Featuring 6-8 products rather than 20 will increase attention. Large simple graphics can work well. And of course, a clear call to action.

Bonus tip: ASOS have kept it simple with the Christmas graphics, nothing too cheesy or cringe. You can have a hint without going overboard – unless that’s your brands objective and style, then go for it!

 

Waitrose

This one’s a little different. Display ads at Christmas time resonate with users as it’s so topical for the time.

Here, Waitrose had a great idea when it chose simple creatives. With display ads, less is often more. They have minimal text and a clear call to action. The click-through was to a Christmas landing page featuring all the best Christmas food and kitchenware rather than the homepage of the site.

Waitrose also closely matched its display ads to its TV ads and landing pages on its website, increasing the touchpoints a potential user received. For one campaign it’s best to have great creative across a few channels for the biggest benefits. Something Waitrose did well here, which is why it makes our list.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our pick of the best Christmas campaigns. Here at Reach Solutions we’ve helped run thousands of successful seasonal campaigns, and we have a dedicated creative team who can lend a hand with both video production and ad design.

Let us help bring your Christmas campaigns to life through our media solutions and in-house expertise. Click below to get in touch!