Christmas ads – festive tradition or commercial tactic?

We’ve all had a difficult year. Lockdown after lockdown, we slowly had to get used to a new normal, which for many, included not seeing our families at Christmas.

Now that time of year has come around again, we are starting to see warming, emotive adverts pop up on our screens and everything feels almost normal.

But do we want gimmicky adverts shoved in our faces from 1 November?

Considering many people hate adverts and look to the skip button at the first opportunity, we Brits find ourselves excitedly counting down the days until festive ads are on our screens.

We long for this time of year, as we can use pretty much anything as an excuse to be merry on sherry and fill our stomachs with scrumptious goodies.

According to research conducted by Kantar Millward Brown between 2015 and 2017, brands who told emotionally compelling stories in their Christmas adverts had a higher chance of capturing and keeping the attention of a potential consumer.

Perhaps that’s why I can remember shedding a tear or two at the 2010 John Lewis Christmas advert at the age of 11 because I had never seen anything quite like it.

The emotion, the song, the individual stories it told. I knew it was special.

Since then, John Lewis have earned themselves the reputation as Christmas royalty, with both adults and children waiting for the advert to be released, marking the official start of the holiday season.

Influential, an award-winning marketing agency, describes Christmas adverts as part of a new festive tradition, full of creativity and heart-warming messages.

They reported that in 2018, companies spent a whopping £6.5 billion on festive adverts, which is estimated to be 27 per cent of annual advert expenditure.

The Guardian reports that advertisers are expected to spend an extra £1 billion this year, bringing the total to an estimated £7.9 billion.

Retailers invest their time and money this way as the reaction from the public could make or break their profits.

I think it is important to address that behind every advert is an ulterior motive for brands to sell more of their goods and entrap customers by playing on their emotions.

A tweet by Cosmopolitan UK, which read 'Okay. Actually sobbing at an advert now. Let's ALL buy EVERYTHING at John Lewis FOREVER.' sums up the aim of their adverts.

Other brands like Coca Cola, Aldi, and Marks and Spencer know exactly what they are doing and execute their plan to play on our heartstrings well.

But let’s not be scrooges – festive adverts are fun and we need them on our screens as soon as possible after the shambolic Christmas we had last year.

Edited by Jemma Snowdon