It’s that time of year again when we reveal Ireland’s best Christmas ad and this year we are delighted to announce that Lidl Magical Christmas takes home the top spot with a RED Star score of 77, 20 points above norm and just one point ahead of a very honourable 2nd place for An Post’s Tin Man.
What makes Lidl so special this year is that for a lot of Irish consumers, the combination of the storyline and the Lidl Toy Bank brought them back to what is important at Christmas, as one reviewer remarked, “It reminds us that Christmas is about sharing and thinking of others”.
This sentiment is highlighted via very strong Emotional Response and Emotional Impact Scores with Lidl also securing the highest levels of Rational Impact (likelihood to use brand) across all Christmas ads this year, just goes to show that an effective Grocery Christmas ad doesn’t necessarily have to feature big Christmas family feast!
Since the Tin Man first came on our screens in 2022, it has smashed through our RED Star norms but more importantly, has scored better year after year. Starting with a RED Star score in 2022 of 74, then moving to 75 in 2023 and now at 76 – this campaign has managed to build annual wear-in through story evolution.
As one reviewer said, “It’s nice to see a follow up to the original ad where the tin man gets a heart in the post form the neighbour!” The evolved storyline kept the strong distinctive assets of the Character (Tin Man) with plenty of green popping throughout the ad, and together with the instantly recognisable aural asset in Lyra’s The Magic of Christmas, brings everything together into a memorable and highly effective ad.
Not working quite as well over time however is Kevin the Carrott from Aldi. While still an incredibly effective campaign, reaching #3 in Ireland’s best Christmas Ads with a score of 71, the numbers are not as strong as we saw in 2022 (79) or 2023 (77). When we look in detail at the RED Star scores, we can see that the ad is as Distinctive as always as people easily recognise it as Aldi, but where it drops back over the years is in Fame (talk about / share with others), Creativity (desire to see again) and Emotional Response.
Another finding from our 2024 Christmas test was that brands can’t rely on celebs to achieve effectiveness. Marks & Spencer have used Dawn French for many years in its voice-over, but this was the first year that we saw her make an appearance as herself (or maybe with a lean towards her character in The Vicar of Dibley). While the ad was very well received and achieved a RED Star score 10-points above norm, it didn’t do as well as many others due to lower levels of Creativity, Fame and Distinctiveness as people didn’t link the ad back to Marks & Spencer.
Rockshore also came back to our screens with their Christmas ad featuring Ronan Keating this year, but unfortunately, the ad didn’t reach the high notes with a RED Star score of 49, 8 points below norm levels. This is a classic example of taking a gamble and it not necessarily paying off as verbatim analysis highlights the degree to which Irish people just didn’t understand the connection of Ronan Keating and Rockshore.
As we have seen in the past, ads that generate a strong emotional response, are easily linked back to the brand (Distinctive) and make the viewer want to watch again (Creativity), tend to reach the top.
Important to realise however that you don’t always have to pull at the heart strings to illicit a strong Emotional Response as we can see here when TK Maxx reaches the highest Emotional Response score by making people laugh.
To access the full results, please complete the form below:
If you want to see how your advert or campaign tests against the norm, and vs. these Christmas ad scores, you can test your ad overnight at www.redcdirect.com
For more information on RED Direct or RED Star evaluation, get in touch with RED C at:
Ciara Reilly, Group Director, RED C Research
[email protected]
Bryan Cox, Group Director, RED C Research
[email protected]
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