With their Christmas campaigns, brand manufacturers and retailers are slowly turning into the home stretch. A look at the advertising blocks shows that almost all relevant players have now started corresponding campaigns. But what ingredients does a Christmas spot need to be successful?
Advent calendar mulled wine and cookie scent: it’s finally here again! The stalls at the Christmas market are open, Mariah Carey’s “All I want for Christmas is you” is waiting in every crowded department store and the first Christmas celebrations are coming up. And with that, it is time for the Christmas advertising check with our SwaCash Reel real-time evaluation, with which we take a close look at Milka’s Christmas spot this year. Under our advertising Christmas tree, there are also beautifully packed spots for the festival of love from Amazon Prime, Tchibo and Aldi. Let’s see what the Christmas clips bring us this year!
Amazon Prime gives singing packages to the festival of love.
The Amazon Prime Christmas spot with its singing parcels, happy family scenes and people who fall in rows in their arms is very well received by the audience and achieves a reel score of 64. Also, the branding of the brand was skillfully set and brought gave the spot a perfect reel score @ branding of 70. The spot scores above average. This increases continuously over the entire course and is already above the benchmark after about seven seconds. Overall, the Amazon campaign is fun and triggers the anticipation of coming home for Christmas.
Tchibo unfortunately without Christmas flair
In its Christmas spot over the fully automatic coffee machines, Tchibo uses Christmas motifs without an emotionally charged story. At first, you can see a man annoyed trying to untangle a string of lights while decorating for Christmas. Overall, this rather frustrating scene remains the only Christmas sequence in the spot. After all, there is a Christmas song with bells and rattles that plays in the background, along with the slogan: “Pretty Christmas”, However, the message of making Christmas time a little more special with aromatic coffee does not affect the reel evaluation curve. However, the spot does not want to pick up speed and ends up in the benchmark with an average score of 54 and a reel score @ branding of 54 as well. However, it ranks last among our tested Christmas spots.
Aldi rummages in the box with the classics
Aldi is also trying a bit of humour this year – with a potpourri of Christmas classics from film and television. We see allusions to the movie “Actually Love”, “Die Slowly” and “Kevin Alone at Home” During the branding, including the presentation of the delicious Christmas classics from Aldi, the Christmas spot even made it beyond the benchmark.
Milka’s children’s choir and interpersonal gesture arrive
And now to the test spot and thus to the crystal-clear Christmas commercial winner Milka. The spot’s evaluation curve increases significantly right from the start and leaves the benchmark behind after only eleven seconds. As a result, the average score is an excellent 67 at the end. With the emotional spot from Wieden & Kennedy with the motto “Give to those who give from the heart” Milka encourages people to give something back to others during Christmas. The one-minute spot shows a children’s choir rehearsing the piece “You’ve got the love” (originally from Florence & The Maschine) for a Christmas concert and is accidentally interrupted by the deaf caretaker who is preparing the Christmas decoration for the performance, On the day of the performance, the caretaker was surprised by a girl from the choir with a chocolate Santa and an interpersonal gesture in sign language.
The audience very well received the emotional message, the music of the children’s choir and the Christmas setting down to the last detail: More than half said that they liked the spot very well or even very well. Accordingly, the place is charming, secure, but also very down-to-earth and pleasant. Three-quarters of the viewers find that the spot stands out from other spots. Around eight out of ten viewers state that the place fits the brand (85 per cent), and the credibility is also very high, with 76 per cent approval. As far as the design elements colours, music, actors and implementation are concerned, the spot is rewarded with above-average ratings in all categories.
Lots of evaluation gifts for the Milka spot, which advertises to make others happy – preferably with Milka chocolate, of course. And this message is also understood: three quarters (74 per cent) of the respondents state that the spot stimulates them to make others happy soon. This is also reflected in the open mentions: When asked about the core message of the commercial, the exact wording of the advertising message is only mentioned twice, but must respond with “give love” and “express gratitude”. The fact that the caretaker is deaf is also well received. The diversity the spot takes up is positively highlighted by the respondents.
Contemplative messages and humour for the festival work well
In a direct comparison of the Christmas spots, Milka hung the Christmas star very high on the Christmas tree with his emotional campaign. Immediately afterwards, Amazon Prime comes with the bright, catchy Christmas spot. With a slight gap to 3rd place in the Christmas comparison, Aldi’s classic campaign in 3rd place. Tchibo takes the last place with rather simple Christmas motifs.
The tested spots prove that creative Christmas advertising can look very different in principle and that both high emotions and humour reach the viewers. It becomes clear that there can be a little more at Christmas. This is shown above all by the above-average ratings for the spots of Milka and Amazon Prime, which rely on high emotions in combination with Christmas storytelling. But the place by Aldi, in which sophisticated storie are told with humorous phrase, are also well received. Laboriously designed stories are rewarded, while merely picking up on the Christmas theme is simply not enough to stand out in the season, which is overloaded with advertising technology anyway. To break away
And Bonus at the end: Probably the best Christmas spot of the year comes from Canada
Until recently, Christmas advertising was considered the supreme discipline – however, this season has so far been rather weak in highlights. But now Air Canada comes along with a film that one can already confidently call one of the best Christmas spots of 2019.
The three-minute film entitled “Lost Reindeer” tells the story of four children who discover a lonely reindeer in the forest. And although unlike Rudolph from the famous song, it doesn’t have a red nose, it quickly becomes clear to the little ones: This reindeer is an extraordinary one – and it has to be brought to its home town as soon as possible.
Air Canada: Lost Reindeer
The spot shows in a sensitive way which magical time is Christmas for children, without the generic family scenes or gift orgies under the Christmas tree, which have been seen all too often in the past years. Instead, Air Canada is developing a story in “Lost Reindeer” that fits the brand as well as it does for Christmas. The British industry media Campaign is already seeing the spot in the Hall of Fame of the Christmas Super Bowl 2019.
“We wanted to develop an advertisement that reflects the magic and celebrations that are taking place this time of year,” said Andrew Shibata, brand director at Air Canada. And that shows that the plane is extremely popular as a means of transport for the holidays, despite all the discussions about climate protection and aviation shame. “Our customers gather and unite around the world for Christmas, and Air Canada’s 36,000 employees are pleased to be able to play a role in this,” Shibata said.
The spot will be played on various platforms: A 30-second version will be shown on Canadian television, the 90-second version will be used in the cinema. Air Canada runs a 15-second spot on Facebook and Co. FCB Canada is responsible for the creation.
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