Buster the Boxer, John Lewis’s 2016 advert received the lowest neutrality score in a ‘Test-Your-Ad’ retest of John Lewis Christmas offerings.
Consultancy firm, System1 has retested John Lewis Christmas ads from the past decade against its Test-Your-Ad rating platform to see how audiences would respond if they were released today.
The ads were ranked by the level of neutral responses they received on Test-Your-Ad.
Findings from the testing discovered that the department store’s ads were “remarkably” consistent, with ‘Buster the Boxer’ ranked as the most entertaining, having achieved a neutrality score of 15%.
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In second place was its ‘Monty the Penguin’ advert (2014) with 17% of viewers rating it as neutral, following in third place by 2019’s ‘Excitable Edgar’ with a score of 22%.
All three ads also scored 5.9 stars: the highest rating given by System1.
System1 chief customer officer Jon Evans commented: “John Lewis saved Christmas from boredom back in the 2010s and it’s fantastic to see that their greatest hits can still compete with any of the newest crop of Christmas ads.
“What gets viewers most interested are the fabulous characters like Buster, Monty and Edgar that the brand has created over the years. It proves how important a great character can be in your Christmas commercial.
“John Lewis are also a brand where creative consistency has really paid off, with a long-term approach that changed not only their fortunes but the face of their whole sector. You can’t get much less dull than that.”
The retesting comes after the consultancy firm debuted its ‘Cost of Dull’ research at Cannes earlier this year. The research explores the costs of making generic advertising instead of provocative ads that connect with audiences.
