Christmas adverts 2025 reviewed… Part 2
To see part one of our Christmas adverts review click here
Are you starting to feel Christmassy yet? It tried it’s damndest to snow last week didn’t it? And what with the lights getting switched on all over town ‘the season’ is increasingly hard to avoid. To be honest I gave in this week, and had my first pigs in blankets… So for me, it’s kind of arrived.
It’s also panto season, a time when every line is delivered with a pun or a double entendre. I only hope this is also the season when the people making our Christmas adverts lean into that silliness and stop trying to be so achingly trendy, becoming, instead, a little more like the rest of us. I was always told as a young copywriter that puns were not cool. But Christmas – and Christmas ads – come but once a year, and I’m one of the people who just can’t wait to see which cheesy ads have been concocted. I’m snow excited!
This year Boots has gone full panto with its Christmas advert. Not only is a character reminiscent of Puss in Boots taking centre stage, but the whole ad seems written for a single line of dialogue: “Where’ve you been Puss” / “…In Boots!” Still, we get to learn about everything they’re flogging this Christmas, and can enjoy a bit of Duran Duran too, which is a good start to office party season.
Aldi has been building the character of Kevin the Carrot for years now. He’s “won Christmas” for me a few times – and this year is no different. We’re seeing a lot of different formats this year, a symptom of the ever-earlier kick-off to the season and perhaps the increasingly high levels of competition.
This charming little Christmas advert has one standout line: “Where’ve you been Kevin”, “I went to Lapland… you know.. for the dancing,” which will go over the heads of the littler ones, but will raise a smile from any fans of the outrageous coming-of-age Harry Enfield movie Kevin & Perry Go Large.
As for Lego’s advert this year, I absolutely adore it. It’s big and it’s full of character. It features siblings whose Lego collections come to life and pull them through a world of childish wonder, featuring everyone from The Hulk to Darth Vader and the Wicked Witch of the West. The opening line, “In your dreams you’ve stepped on me… a thousand times,” will ring painfully true for parents across the land. The whole advert is gloriously entertaining, a toy-shop-comes-to-life celebration of Christmassy loveliness. This is an advert to find on YouTube if you’ve not seen it in the wild. Utterly charming.
This year’s Waitrose’s Christmas advert delivers a quintessentially British romcom style. I love the way the supermarket has gone for a longer format so it can really get into the story. It even follows on from last year’s narrative, and history tells us a brand using the same story over a number of years can be a successful formula (remember Nescafe? Renault Clio?). The fact they’ve paired Kiera Knightley (who is perfect casting) with Joe Wilkinson (who, coincidentally, used to work for me 20 years ago knocking out ads by day and doing stand-up in the evenings) fresh from his success in Traitors, is a mismatch made in heaven. This advert is a mash-up of all the genre cliches from Love Actually, Bridget Jones and Four Weddings, although it turns out to be less ‘About a Boy’ and more ‘about a pie’. Exactly what we all need at this time of year.
And then there’s the Tesco Christmas advert. I can see what they were going for – but I don’t like it. I’m aware Christmas can involve unwelcome opinions, unnecessary cards, unfathomable traditions and unresolvable arguments. But while I spend the season quite successfully trying to avoid them, I don’t need reminding about these difficult moments in an advert for a grocer. Christmas cliches are fine if they’re selling me the dream; on some deep, cognitive level my brain forgives them… but please don’t use them to sell me the nightmare as well.
Right then, I’m off to marinate in port until the new year. There will be a whole new set of ads for holidays and gym memberships before you know it… And so the cycle repeats! Until then, have a very merry Christmas!