The Christmas Ad Evolution: We review 2024’s supermarket festive adverts… and how they polarize audiences

How has the audience reaction to Christmas Ads – from some of the UK’s biggest brands – evolved from last year? 🎁

…probably not in the direction many brands and their ad agencies would have hoped. Festive spirit is in short supply, with conversation levels as a whole shrinking, and the vibe becoming decisively more negative. The latter appears a result of increased politicization, with many conversations focusing on the racial or gender identity of the characters portrayed.

Elsewhere, John Lewis & Partners and Aldi UK enjoyed moderately successful campaigns by taking two very different routes. 

John Lewis’ ad, which focuses on two sisters, led to audiences liking the more grounded, family-based tone. However, this conservative tone led to some unsavoury views popping up from certain audiences, such as celebrating that there were no people of colour featured in the ad - including heavy-handed comments from Lionel Shriver in the Times that John Lewis’ white cast is evidence of the ‘world recovering from woke brain rot.’ The ad also faced backlash from right-wing men’s rights groups online, claiming that having no male actors in the ad is gender-based erasure. This has led to an overall lower sentiment reaction in 2024 compared to 2023. These conflicting, confusing narratives - along with the more complex sisterly story in the advert itself - have led to the ad not taking hold in the way expected of John Lewis’ usual festive ad success.

Aldi continued their cinematic universe centred on Aldi ‘mascot’ Kevin the Carrot in a Mission Impossible-style jaunt. However, once a sold-out Christmas plushie, the vegetable vagabond didn’t reach the success he has experienced in the eight years since his 2016 debut. Some viewers didn’t connect with the ad after calls of the carrot having ‘had his day’ and some objecting to the uncanny artistic style used in the ad.

The aldi advert with the christmas dinner looks like ai

— derek branning's shiny pursed lips (@realseanslater) December 19, 2024

Neither captured the hearts and minds of viewers as they had in 2023, with almost all supermarkets in our studies having a drop in sentiment in 2024. Only Waitrose’s star-studded multi-part ad about a missing pudding and M&S’s fairy-fuelled magical party romp starring Dawn French manage to gain on their reactions from last year.

Waitrose & Partners’s decision to opt for a multi-part whodunnit, featuring actors from prestige shows such as Succession, Fleabag and Slow Horses, helped them enjoy a slight uptick. Their audience-first approach appears to have resonated to some degree (our research suggests a high degree of crossover between Succession fans and audiences talking about the advert), but the serialized aspect appears to have prevented more widespread engagement. A high percentage of the conversation taking place around the campaign, for instance, appears to be amongst marketing professionals on LinkedIn.

The Waitrose Christmas ad is refreshingly good. None of this feel good bollocks, just the true meaning of Christmas, a man hiding food from his family

— Anon Opin. (@anon_opin) December 10, 2024

As we move into the uncertainty of 2025, it’s clear that authenticity will be the key for brands aiming to connect with their audiences. Supermarkets’ overall relative Christmas ad downbeat shows that viewers are becoming increasingly discerning, and seeking genuine connection with relatable stories. The brands that leveraged IP, traditionalism - and a healthy dose of playfulness and celebrity - have performed best with audiences. Though this hasn’t led to landslide Christmas domination for the likes of Waitrose and M&S, it’s clear that in a volatile, fast-moving landscape, brand trust is harder to earn.

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