The winning formula for Christmas ads is changing, says Lumen
Embedding “icons” into Christmas ads is an important component to creating Christmas ads that grab and hold attention.
That is one takeaway from a new report by attention measurement company Lumen Research and TV performance measurement company TVision, which found that just one of John Lewis’ acclaimed ads made it into the top-50 most attention-grabbing ads of the past three holiday seasons.
The Christmas in July report comprised three years of aggregated eye-tracking data to measure which Christmas ads best captured audience attention. It found that ads with a strong plot, purposeful messaging and an absence of Christmas music were most likely to hold attention with telly ads, with brands like Aldi, The National Lottery and McDonalds among the big winners of attention in recent years.
“The mellow, snowy ads that have dominated the 21st century are losing popularity,” said Lumen Research CEO Mike Follett. “The brands that recognise attention data correlates with ROI will ultimately stay ahead of these evolving trends and unlock impact this Christmas”.
The report identified five key learnings from the “attention winners” over the past three Christmases.
Everybody loves a good story
First, successful brands tell a story, with the results of the report highlighting three of the top five ads — Aldi Chocolate Factory, National Lottery Train Ride and Aldi Home Alone — had evolving plots which held the viewer’s attention to the end and rewarded their involvement with an emotionally satisfying payoff.
According to the report, “a single, well told story” is more effective at grabbing and holding attention than montage style features, with the data suggesting “trying to be the jack of all Christmases means you will be the master of none.”
Given the limited time consumers typically pay attention to ads for, the report highlights that people are most likely to watch ads to the very end “if you make them worth watching”.
The right track
Secondly, the data identified audiences’ musical preferences are changing.
The inclusion of old school bangers in ads, instead of Christmas classics, revealed higher “attentive seconds per thousand impressions” (APM), with Etsy’s Mission Impossible 2022 ad achieving APM of 11,574.
According to the report, using non-Christmassy tunes tends to be more effective given that people’s ears are overloaded with Christmas songs in December, meaning brands that go against the grain are more likely to stand out.
Also, using upbeat originals as opposed to covers was found to be more successful.
The attentive success of Morrison’s 2024 Christmas ad, which features singing oven gloves performing “Give a Little Love” from the film Bugsy Malone, also suggests finding ways to uniquely incorporate music with messaging is effective. The ad held a viewing rate of 82% and APM of 27,057.
Icons are for life, not just for Christmas
Thirdly, the report draws upon the success of brands who understand the power of an icon in gaining and holding attention.
Notable ad icons included Aldi’s “Kevin the Carrot” and M&S’s Dawn French, with the report underlining how the magnetism of these icons makes the ads worth watching, describing this as the “icon amplification effect.”
It was also noted brands should not feel the need to recreate a new icon each year: “the best performing brands establish an icon (often over many years), and then use this to amplify the more mundane messages,” according to the report.
As well the report suggested consistency should be something brands aim for in creating their own “Christmas tradition.”
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The finding is broadly aligned with a separate study by VCCP Media and Amplified Intelligence published earlier this year, which found distinctive brand assets reduce the amount of attentive time required for ads to have an impact on memory.
“A great Christmas ad isn’t made in 60 seconds — it’s built over years,” said Follet. “From the tear-jerking stories audiences watch on repeat to the soundtracks they hum along to, campaigns with recognisable, iconic assets can drive engagement and build strong brand associations.”
Stand out from the crowd
Similarly, brands who are willing to create their own “visual language” of Christmas have a greater chance of being eye-catching and ownable amongst a surplus of similar Christmas iconography.
The report exemplifies Tesco’s How Bizarre 2023 Christmas ad, which brought to life the idea of “becoming Christmassy” through the metaphor of a teenager sprouting spruce shoots.
The true meaning of Christmas
Finally, report recommends ads that strike the right balance of being uncomplicatedly jolly but also highlight difficult issues are the ones that are successful.
“It turns out that the British public are a bunch of softies, especially at Christmas,” it reads.
Purpose-led ads that highlighted generosity or social impact were found to strike an attentive chord with audiences who may feel connected with the meaning of Christmas.
Walkers’ 2022 Christmas ad, for example, explored feeling alone in a crowd and how sharing crisps can break the spell. The ad had a APM of 18,763.
Lumen and TVision collected TV ad attention data through a nationally representative panel of 750 UK households.
The metrics used in quantifying attention in this data included the percentage of ads that were viewable, the view rate (ads that received at least 0.1 seconds of attention), and the average view time.
These were combined into the composite APM metric, which was calculated by multiplying 1,000 impressions by the view rate and the average attention time.
For tjhe report, Lumen analysed festive ads from December 2022-2024, focusing on those with over 100 views.