This year alone, Americans are expected to spend an average of $975 on holiday gifts, according to a November Gallup poll. So it may be no wonder that brands are investing even more in holiday advertising.
“In the United States, we’re starting to treat [holiday ads] with bigger budgets, longer formats, and more interesting storytelling,” Jason Ashlock, ECD at adam&eveDDB New York, told Marketing Brew.
However, due to factors like economic pressures and changing tastes, many brands have reevaluated their holiday ads this year in an effort to connect more authentically with consumers. We spoke to creatives at a few agencies to find out how they approached holiday creative this season.
Play ball
Holiday advertising is particularly prominent in the UK, with all of the creatives we spoke to comparing holiday advertising there to the Super Bowl in terms of relevancy. A number of brands, including department store John Lewis and soft-drink giant Coca-Cola, have for years been known for releasing short film-like holiday ads for the UK market.
“The John Lewis ads for the UK are like the Super Bowl for the Brits—they anticipate it, they’re waiting for it to come,” Armando Potter, group strategy director at 72andSunny, told us. “There are a few brands like that who are historically known for the holiday ads that they put out.”
In more recent years, there’s been interest among brands to ramp up holiday advertising in the US, Ashlock said.
“I think only recently, in the last five to 10 years in the United States, has Christmas become a bigger deal,” he told us. “The Super Bowl will always reign supreme, but Christmas advertising in the United States has become a much bigger deal.”
The importance of both markets means that some holiday marketing messages are increasingly global, Potter said.
“Even Black Friday has become a European thing,” he said. “There’s more and more global brands out there who are just thinking of holidays as a global thing, not American versus European. It’s just that the message can spread quite easily across multiple markets.”
Reality check
While holiday ads are often considered to be emotionally heightened, Ashlock said, some brands this year have dialed it back.
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“This year, there’s been a little more pragmatism from clients, just because of the economy, in terms of what they want the message to be,” Ashlock said. “Is it a more value-driven message as opposed to a more emotional brand-level message.
In the UK, holiday ads tend to have “some levity,” aiming to show “some of the good things that happen at Christmas, but also maybe some of the bad things…the things that all families have to sort of struggle through or put up with,” Dan Hill, chief strategy officer at Wieden+Kennedy, said.
Amid a sea of more traditional ads highlighting “themes of love and family and peace at the holidays,” Potter said that some brands have leaned into absurdity and embraced humor in ads as a way to differentiate themselves.
“If you take it to places like absurdity, or just [make it] a little more gritty or real, I think it can maybe counterbalance that atmosphere,” he said.
Less is (not always) more
In most markets, the actual length of holiday ads tends to be longer than other ad creative, which is designed to build emotional connections with consumers, Ashlock said. Adam&eveDDB worked with grocery chain Kroger this year on its holiday ad, called “Cuisine Exchange,” which resulted in a 30-second spot for TV and CTV. But there is also a 74-second version of the ad, which went viral on TikTok.
But Hill cautioned against making “gratuitously long ads” for the sake of it. “Often,” he said, “they’re too long.