‘Good creative wears in’: How ‘multifaceted’ consistency is driving festive ad ratings

Christmas offers an opportunity for marketers to go all out on a bold new approach. Or, equally, it can be a time to evolve what works, whether that’s running the same ad or bringing back beloved brand mascots.

Emotive storytelling, product focus and episodic approaches are key themes among this year’s Christmas ads. Another is consistency. According to System1 chief customer officer, Jon Evans, “good creative wears in, it doesn’t wear out” and consistent ads are topping this year’s rankings.

Last year, System1 senior vice-president Andrew Tindall described 2024 as “the most consistent Christmas yet”, as the likes of M&S Food, Aldi and Morrisons brought back beloved brand characters.

This year looks like a strong follow-up. 2025 has seen the return of Sainsbury’s BFG, which notched up a 5.3 star System1 ranking and the return of Coca-Cola’s AI truck, which scored 5.9 stars – an uplift of 2.8 stars versus the food and drink category.

They’re learning from friends like Aldi and Lidl who are having more consistent storytelling, which only serves to help reinforce memory structures.

Kurt Stuhllemmer, Hall & Partners

Kevin the Carrot returned for Aldi for his tenth year, with part one of the three-parter scoring 5.8 stars on System1 – a 2.4 star uplift versus the supermarket category. The ad also scored strongly on relatability, with Ipsos data highlighting 52% of people agree the ad is ‘for people like me’.

Evans says Aldi does advertising “perfectly” with Kevin the Carrot, which has the “familiarity” with customers to “turn up in lots of different scenarios”. This year’s festive advert was the highest ever ranking ten second ad on System1, with Evans claiming the familiarity of Kevin as a character and cultural references to the well-known ‘Love Actually’ film helped to create emotion.

“It’s very hard in ten seconds to make somebody feel something, because you just don’t have the time to tell the story,” says Evan.

He explains there’s enough in the latest Kevin the Carrot outing to remind consumers it’s an Aldi ad and enough that’s new to engage.

According to Kantar, three out of four people say they’re looking forward to seeing the final part of the Aldi trilogy. This episodic approach was also taken by Tesco, which revealed an 11 episode campaign. According to Samira Brophy at Ipsos, when it comes to episodic approaches “sequential episodic storytelling” is the best approach.

‘Elevate distinctiveness’

Head of creative excellence at Kantar, Lynne Deason, explains consistency is “multifaceted”. Kantar’s data finds brand mascots, or the use of animation, helps “elevate distinctiveness” when compared to other ads. Deason also claims mascots help with branding.

“Instead of landing in around average for branding, those ads [with brand mascots], when they’re executed well, can land in almost the top third of ads,” she says.

“When you’ve got to be creatively distinctive to avoid being just another Christmas ad, when you’ve got to ensure people connect to your brand, then using brand mascots is a great way to do that.”

This is despite mascots being “low down” on Kantar’s ranking of what consumers say they look forward to about Christmas ads.

Given the effectiveness brand mascots can offer, Evans feels Morrisons should have stuck with its singing oven gloves this year to build brand association, while John Lewis could have benefitted from owning a brand character again for retail opportunities to “connect Christmas advertising back to the in-store experience”.

He notes M&S Food bringing back Dawn French as a good example, claiming the more association French has with M&S “the more they can use her in different situations”.

“I suppose the question I would ask of advertisers is, how do you make great advertising for life, not just for Christmas?” adds Evans.

It takes a very special brand to be able to subvert its own Christmas tradition.

Samira Brophy, Ipsos

Partner at Hall & Partners Kurt Stuhllemmer predicts Boots’ ‘Puss in Boots’ brand character will return. The advert scored a 5.9 star System1 rating – an uplift of 2.3 stars versus the chemists and opticians’ category.

“They’re learning from friends like Aldi and Lidl who are having more consistent storytelling, which only serves to help reinforce memory structures,” he claims.

That said, he argues there still needs to be “moments of surprise and delight” in consistent storytelling.

“Consistent strategy, consistent storytelling, but with moments of newness is critical,” says Stuhllemmer.

Joy, he argues, is also important for success. He expects Asda’s Grinch advert, which reinforces the “negative” of Christmas being expensive, will cause experience dips in advertising effectiveness.

‘Solid strategy’

Coca-Cola returned with its now iconic ‘Holidays Are Coming’ campaign, but altered the execution for a second year running using AI.

Evans says Coca-Cola’s high System1 score of 5.9 stars means AI “doesn’t matter” to consumers and what they really care about is the “finished product”.

“What Coke is doing is leveraging all the associations with the trucks and Christmas, and the song and the polar bears. The fact that it’s AI doesn’t actually matter,” says Evans. Brophy echoes this opinion.

“It takes a very special brand to be able to subvert its own Christmas tradition,” she states, arguing Coke is able to do that.

‘The bar has definitely gone up’: How brands are ‘rewriting’ the Christmas playbook

According to data from analysis firm Tracksuit, Coke is the leader in the soft drinks category and its annual Christmas ad means it is frequently associated by consumers with the words “festive”, “Coke truck” and “classic, Christmas ad”.

Consistency also shows up in Amazon and Cadbury reusing adverts. Amazon brought back 2023’s ‘Joy Ride’, which topped System1’s early rankings, scoring 5.9 stars for long-term brand building – an uplift of 3.1 stars versus the retail category.

According to Evans, Amazon reusing the same ad is “absolutely sensible” given the success of the creative, while Deason reports both Cadbury and Amazon are performing “really well” on Kantar’s rankings. Brophy agrees bringing back a strong performing ad is a “solid strategy”.