Christmas advert testing 2021

Christmas ads are usually characterised by a powerful feel-good factor. They take us on emotional journeys, and they are highly enjoyable. For the seventh year, our annual Christmas TV ad research unwraps the secrets behind what makes festive ads memorable for consumers and successful for advertisers. How have they performed this year?

In October we revealed that Christmas 2021 is important to 35% of people (rising to 54% amongst 16–34-year-olds and parents with children at home) and, with 26% planning to spend less this year, we could be seeing a shift towards the true meaning of Christmas. We also know the British public love Christmas ads and wish ads through the rest of the year were as good as they are during the festive period. Here we reveal this year’s most effective Christmas Ads.

Using LinkExpress, we asked 3600 UK consumers what they thought about 24 of this year’s Christmas ads. The research reviewed the critical factors that have been proven to determine whether an ad will be effective; exploring whether it earns attention, if it will motivate people to buy in the short term, and whether it evokes responses that will contribute to the brand’s success in the longer term. Partnering with Affectiva, Kantar also used facial coding to determine the power of the ad to provoke an emotional reaction, and the nature of that emotion moment by moment as people experience the ad.