Christmas 2019: winners and losers in this year’s festive fare

Cute animated characters? Check. Acoustic versions of old standards? Check. Slow motion footage of a bronzed turkey being carried to table? Check. 

It is the annual pre-Christmas advertising frenzy, where brands compete for consumer attention in the aim of taking their share of the festive consumer spend.  According to the Study for the Centre for Retail Research, consumers are expected to spend £80 billion in the final six weeks of the year so it’s no surprise that brands hotly compete for consumer attention during the festive period.

So what’s new this year? For the large part, not much.  Many of the big name retailers have stuck to the ‘tried and tested’ formulae.  The usual favourites such as John Lewis, Waitrose and Sainbury’s have maintained their position as custodians of schmaltz.  Others, such as M&S, Aldi, and Asda have gone old-school with classic Christmas imagery, focusing on the warm fuzzy feelings that make us remember holidays with our loved ones.  To our mind, some of these classic depictions feel predictable and dated, and we’re not surprised by the bashing Lidl’s ‘Bigger is Better’ ad has received in the industry press, at odds as it is with the consumer thirst for all things simple and intimate.

Changing media trends have had an impact, however.  According to research by WARC for the Advertising Association, this year retailers overall are prioritising online, radio, and cinema rather than TV to reflect shifting content trends.  This no doubt impacts on the sorts of ads we are seeing. In keeping with the consumer appetite for smaller, more personal and authentic brand stories, the winners seem to focus on shorter formats and the ‘human story’: from Dunelm’s campaign where authentic customers sit on their sofas and talk about their decorations, to the widely-praised 10 second animations by KFC.  One ad receiving critical acclaim is a two minute, home-made, lower budget commercial #BeAKidThisChristmas by Hafod Hardware. The small business owner promotes buying local, showcasing his store being taken care of by his son. The total cost of production was just £100 pound (to gain permission to play the accompanying music) in return for 16K likes on YouTube (so far).