Brands that have used established festive narratives and characters with strong recall have found the most advertising success this Christmas, according to System1.
The effectiveness platform has found that brands such as Aldi and M&S who have this year prominently featured recurring characters in their hero festive spots have enjoyed considerably more success than those who didn’t.
Perhaps surprisingly, brands that have chosen to re-run previous Christmas ads, such as The National Lottery and Cadbury have also found success this year, alongside Coca-Cola’s tried-and-tested ‘Holidays Are Coming’, which has consistently scored System1’s maximum 5.9 stars.
“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,” System1 chief customer officer, Jon Evans said.
“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.
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He continued: “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.”
System 1’s key finding was that although many would expect the effectiveness of adverts might wear out over time, strong creatives can in fact enjoy ‘wear in’, generating repeated success over the years as the creative becomes increasingly familiar to millions.
National Lottery head of marketing communications and creative, Anna McInally added: “We know from System1 testing and our commercial performance that ‘A Christmas Love Story’ was a highly effective ad at both building the National Lottery brand for the long term and driving sales in the short term.
“More people bought a National Lottery game during last Christmas than ate turkey! Creating a Christmas ad is a huge investment and so it was a no brainer to run this much-loved ad for a second Christmas”
