'Top spot' Kevin confirms ads are not just for one Xmas

When it comes to Christmas ads, it seems British consumers love nothing more than a recurring theme, with the latest study showing Aldi’s Kevin the Carrot has once again stormed the consumer festive advertising charts, pipping Coca-Cola’s long running “Holidays Are Coming” to top spot.

So says System1, which has unwrapped the Twelve Ads Of Christmas 2023, based on viewers’ emotional response data captured through its Test Your Ad platform.

In Test Your Ad, each ad is given a Star Rating from 1-Star to 5.9-Stars, a measure predicting their potential to drive long-term brand growth. Overall, only 1% of ads land in the 5-Star range. To rank the ads which gained the maximum 5.9-Star Rating it used a secondary measure, Spike, which predicts short-term sales impact.

In 2022, 16 brands’ Christmas campaigns achieved 5-Stars, with five of these hitting the highest rating of 5.9. This year, System1 tested more than 50 Christmas ads and 20 secured 5-Stars, with seven scoring 5.9-Stars.

Aldi’s Kevin the Carrot returns to the top of the rankings this year, with an ad based on the children’s classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Aldi is the most successful British Christmas brand – it is the fifth year in a row that the Kevin ad has hit 5-Stars, and the brand’s second maximum score in a row.

Coca-Cola comes in second with its holiday perennial “truck convoy”; Coke releases the ad every year and it has never failed to achieve a 5-Star score in testing.

Third is Amazon, with its wordless storytelling ad starring three elderly ladies using the online retailer to relive the tobogganing days of their youth.

Also landing the maximum 5.9-Stars are M&S Food with their recurring Fairy character and Morrisons’ ad with animated oven gloves – for both brands it is their most successful Christmas ad and highest score. The Morrisons ad also shows that you do not need an elaborate story, a celebrity, or large production budget to achieve a top score.

System1 chief customer officer Jon Evans said: “Last year was record-breaking for Christmas ads, and somehow marketers have topped it in 2023 with even higher scores. It’s thanks to advertisers leaning in to consistency and re-using familiar characters like the M&S Fairy and Kevin the Carrot, with a heavy emphasis on traditional elements like Santa too.”

The top ads are ordered by star rating. Ads level on star rating are ordered according to System1’s spike rating which predicts short-term sales impact.

1 Aldi – “Kevin and the Christmas Factory” (5.9-Stars)
2 Coca Cola – “Holidays are Coming” (5.9-Stars)
3 Amazon – “Joy Ride” (5.9-Stars)
4 The Works – “Unwrap Real Value Gifts” (5.9-Stars)
5 M&S Food – “2023 Christmas Advert” (5.9-Stars)
6 Morrisons – “Christmas Advert 2023” (5.9-Stars)
7 Barbour – “Shaun the Sheep x Baa-Bour” (5.9-Stars)
8 Lidl – “A magical Christmas with Lidl” (5.8-Stars)
9 Disney – “A Wish for the Holidays” (5.7-Stars)
10 Sainsbury’s – “This ChrisAtmas, one little girl asks one BIG question” (5.7-Stars)
11 Vodafone “Feel the Connection this Christmas” (5.6-Stars)
12 Duracell ‘Bunny Saves Christmas’ (5.4-Stars)

A separate study by System1 confirms that repeating existing ads and reusing existing characters at Christmas is a highly effective strategy, and tallies with previous research into “wear-out” from System1, which shows ads losing effectiveness over time is largely a myth, and that many ads are actually more likely to “wear in”.

Evans added: “Traditionally brands have felt pressure to come up with something new at Christmas. Each Christmas we give them our hearts but the very next day they give them away, scrapping 5-Star characters and ideas as soon as the season ends.

“But the evidence shows that effective ads and characters are effective every year, with 5-Star ads retaining their effectiveness when re-used. Christmas ads don’t usually wear out, and festive characters actually wear in. Neither M&S Fairy or Kevin The Carrot scored 5-Stars on their first appearance – but marketers invested in them and had a long term plan, and now they’re getting our maximum score for long-term effectiveness.”