Of 22 brand and retailer ads studied, the reworked Greenpeace advert featuring an orangutan resonated most with consumers, scoring top on 10 out of 12 factors, including ‘involvement’, ‘brand love’, ‘enjoyment’, ‘persuasion’, ‘relevant’ and ‘different from others’.

Although the ad was not permitted to run on TV, it was viewed widely online via social media.

The research assessed at the brand-building effectiveness of the main 2018 Christmas ad campaigns through a survey of 1184 UK adults that asked respondents to evaluate three ads each. The agency also conducted facial coding analysis, qualitative video work and social media listening analysis.

According to the study, Amazon’s spot ranked second best for consumers, who found it ‘engaging and relevant’. M&S Food’s advert also scored highly on all measures, while Aldi’s ‘Kevin the Carrot’ ‘combined ‘emotional and rational messages’ and scored second highest after the Iceland ad for ‘enjoyment’.

Meanwhile, this year’s John Lewis Christmas ad failed to engage consumers in the same way as previously, with respondents feeling that it lacked ‘relevance and credibility’. The facial coding analysis found that viewers were slightly confused by the ad and had muted smiles compared to previous ads from the brand.

Sainsbury’s ad also did not feel credible to consumers but performed well on ‘enjoyment’ and ‘brand love’, according to the research.

Graham Page, managing director of offer and innovation at Kantar Millward Brown, said: “This year the best-received ads are those consumers feel capture what Christmas should be about. These depict realistic, straightforward scenarios, and focus on giving gifts that have meaning, rather than costing a lot. This is partly driven by the tough times we’re in, and the increased awareness of the need to live more sustainably. The bigger more cinematic ads offer escapism, but may have seemed out of touch. Ads need to tap into the cultural and social reality.”

Methodology
The survey was conducted using Kantar Millward Brown’s performance measurement tool to test 22 Christmas adverts against 12 factors: branding, involvement, enjoyment, made me love (brand), sets the trends, persuasion, new information, different information, relevant information, believable information, different from others, and delivers main things I need. Eleven of the 12 factors were scored on a scale of one to five, while ‘involvement’ was scored on a scale of one to 10. The survey was conducted during the third week of November.