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Death of the Christmas ad
This year's highly-anticipated Christmas adverts have been more miss than hit, according to the critics.
Neil Kelley, Marketing Course Director at Leeds Business School, explains why.
Christmas - a time for giving and goodwill.
And yet the TV ads designed to encourage us to spread festive cheer, and perhaps spend a little in the advertised stores, seem to be having the opposite effect.
So, what has happened? Ultimately, perhaps we, as the audience of these adverts, expect too much.
We’re often over-stimulated: we crave information, updates, news and entertainment and have become addicted to our screens.
Research from the advertising and marketing agency System1 shows that just 29% of the current Christmas adverts have received a score of three stars or more out of a possible five, compared to 59% last year.
If the Christmas adverts this year haven’t measured up, then perhaps it’s down to our increasing need for stimulation, entertainment and a desire for the festive ads to be big, bold blockbusters that grab our attention and pull on our heartstrings.
This year has been a mixed bag.
We started with the ‘banned’ advert from Iceland that was ‘too political’. In fact, neither of these two claims were true, but it didn’t stop news and social media from erupting in outrage, and an online petition being drawn up and signed by more than 900,000 people.
The ad itself carried a very important message about the damage the increasing use of unsustainable palm oil is doing to rainforests and orangutans, but because it was content repurposed from a Greenpeace campaign it couldn’t be shown on TV.
The decision that it couldn’t be shown, until it could be proven that Greenpeace was not a political organisation, was made by Clearcast, who give the green light for TV ads.
In the face of Christmas spirit, it was bizarre that those who work for Clearcast became targets for online abuse, so much so that their switchboard was shutdown, Twitter removed all content that could identify staff members and their Facebook page was removed for good. Not very Christmassy really.
John Lewis, renowned for its Christmas ads, failed to hit the mass market, despite employing a national treasure.
Don’t like Elton John and feel that giving a piano as a Christmas present it too upper-middle class and not representative of your Christmas? You won't be alone.
Sainsbury’s produced a Christmas ad that all could relate to - the School Christmas production. So full marks there to Sainsbury’s, another great festive ad delivered.
Meanwhile, Aldi's Kevin the Carrot fought off an evil Christmas vegetable and saved Christmas for his family, and his heroic deeds were so highly thought of that some queued outside Aldi for hours to own their own cuddly Kevin (clearly an advert that has worked).
A number of stores focused on their product ranges, supported by some celebrity endorsement but offering little in the way of excitement and drama.
Perhaps we have been spoilt for too long, with stunning storytelling and blockbuster production for our Christmas adverts over the last ten years or so.
Nostalgia is very much rose-tinted and wistful, so do we hark back to better times, like when we first met ‘Monty the Penguin’, or experienced the twist at the end of ‘The Long Wait’?
The Christmas advert is changing (it isn’t dead)and reassuringly it can be Christmas without hearing that ‘Holidays are Coming’ or having a little cry due to heightened emotions with a message that hits you right in the festive feels.
Let’s enjoy what advertising there is, but not be too demanding, let’s ignore what we don’t like and, of course, have a wonderful Christmas!
And yet the TV ads designed to encourage us to spread festive cheer, and perhaps spend a little in the advertised stores, seem to be having the opposite effect.
So, what has happened? Ultimately, perhaps we, as the audience of these adverts, expect too much.
We’re often over-stimulated: we crave information, updates, news and entertainment and have become addicted to our screens.
Research from the advertising and marketing agency System1 shows that just 29% of the current Christmas adverts have received a score of three stars or more out of a possible five, compared to 59% last year.
If the Christmas adverts this year haven’t measured up, then perhaps it’s down to our increasing need for stimulation, entertainment and a desire for the festive ads to be big, bold blockbusters that grab our attention and pull on our heartstrings.
This year has been a mixed bag.
We started with the ‘banned’ advert from Iceland that was ‘too political’. In fact, neither of these two claims were true, but it didn’t stop news and social media from erupting in outrage, and an online petition being drawn up and signed by more than 900,000 people.
The ad itself carried a very important message about the damage the increasing use of unsustainable palm oil is doing to rainforests and orangutans, but because it was content repurposed from a Greenpeace campaign it couldn’t be shown on TV.
The decision that it couldn’t be shown, until it could be proven that Greenpeace was not a political organisation, was made by Clearcast, who give the green light for TV ads.
In the face of Christmas spirit, it was bizarre that those who work for Clearcast became targets for online abuse, so much so that their switchboard was shutdown, Twitter removed all content that could identify staff members and their Facebook page was removed for good. Not very Christmassy really.
John Lewis, renowned for its Christmas ads, failed to hit the mass market, despite employing a national treasure.
Don’t like Elton John and feel that giving a piano as a Christmas present it too upper-middle class and not representative of your Christmas? You won't be alone.
Sainsbury’s produced a Christmas ad that all could relate to - the School Christmas production. So full marks there to Sainsbury’s, another great festive ad delivered.
Meanwhile, Aldi's Kevin the Carrot fought off an evil Christmas vegetable and saved Christmas for his family, and his heroic deeds were so highly thought of that some queued outside Aldi for hours to own their own cuddly Kevin (clearly an advert that has worked).
A number of stores focused on their product ranges, supported by some celebrity endorsement but offering little in the way of excitement and drama.
Perhaps we have been spoilt for too long, with stunning storytelling and blockbuster production for our Christmas adverts over the last ten years or so.
Nostalgia is very much rose-tinted and wistful, so do we hark back to better times, like when we first met ‘Monty the Penguin’, or experienced the twist at the end of ‘The Long Wait’?
The Christmas advert is changing (it isn’t dead)and reassuringly it can be Christmas without hearing that ‘Holidays are Coming’ or having a little cry due to heightened emotions with a message that hits you right in the festive feels.
Let’s enjoy what advertising there is, but not be too demanding, let’s ignore what we don’t like and, of course, have a wonderful Christmas!