The best Christmas ads in the US in 2023

Article by Lisette Kruizinga – de Vries

introduction

Let us begin with a bit of history. Santa Claus as we know it today, originates in the US. It comes from the Dutch Sinterklaas and the English folklore figure Saint Nicholas. Santa brings gifts on Christmas Eve with the help of his elves, who make the toys in Santa’s North Pole workshop. Flying reindeer pulls his sleigh through the air from which he delivers all the gifts. Santa Claus is often depicted as a big man, with a big belly, a white beard and wearing a red coat and trousers with white fur, a black leather belt and boots. Of course, his “Ho, ho, ho!” cannot be missed.

It is this depiction of Santa Claus that originated in North America during the 19^th century. It has been the same ever since and has been reinforced through songs, radio, television, films and advertising. Rumour has it that it was actually Coca-Cola who invented the depiction of Santa and that he wears red and white because those are Coca-Cola’s colours. This is most likely just a myth as another soft drink company advertised with a similar Santa depiction already before Coca-Cola did. Nevertheless, the depiction of Santa Claus in advertising has remained and has been used for years. This year is not an exception and we got to see some nice versions of Santa Claus in different US Christmas ads.

As the year is coming to an end, the TV is now traditionally filled with Christmas ads. And with DVJ´s cherished Christmas tradition, we end each year by delving into the enchanting world of Christmas ads.

The role of Christmas advertising

Each year the question remains the same: How are Christmas ads perceived in our markets? This year’s Christmas study was conducted in five countries: the Netherlands, the UK, Germany, Sweden, and the USA. Following the DVJ way, we created an ad reel with only Christmas ads that compete for the consumer’s attention in each market. In this ‘unforced exposure’ methodology people can skip the ads by zapping as they would when watching TV at home.

We then ask respondents what they recall seeing in terms of the brands and the ad’s message, and finally, we show each respondent two ads in full length and have them evaluate these ads. This year we included many ads from different countries, testing around 100 Christmas ads in total, and for the USA specifically 20 ads!

Performance matrix

We visually summarise the results by plotting all tested ads from the USA on the performance matrix that we use as part of our pretesting methodology (see Figure 1). The matrix shows how ads score on both breakthrough and brand building, relative to other US TV commercials. Of course, even though in December many Christmas commercials are running, Christmas ads still have to compete with regular TV commercials.

On the one axis, we have the breakthrough dimension, which is based on our engagement, unaided brand and message recall metrics. Breakthrough is an important metric because advertisements must ‘break through the clutter’ for people to remember the brand and comprehend the message. An ad cannot be expected to have an actual impact on the brand if it is not sufficiently watched and remembered in the first place.

The brand-building dimension includes positive associations, excitement and brand appeal. The performance matrix clearly shows how an ad compares to the benchmark and where the pain points are.

Figure 1: Performance matrix USA Christmas ads 2023

EXPLANATION GRID: Percentile rankings of all 6 individual KPIs are determined on a normalized scale (0-100) and summarized into a Breakthrough (Y) and Response (X) score and then plotted accordingly on the grid.

Something that can be observed directly from the performance matrix is that we only see one ad, namely Capital One Quicksilver, popping up in the strong, green quadrant. This is again – as we know from previous years – caused by the breakthrough scores of other ads that are falling behind. As we can see from the matrix, the majority of the ads perform above average in terms of brand building.

Still, there is one more ad landing right on the border of the strong quadrant: Coca-Cola’s ad. Finally, Golden Corral and Amazon perform almost similarly on breakthrough, but Amazon performs much stronger on brand building. Then, there are some ads performing almost the same, namely  Disney, Walmart, Duracell, USPS, and Chevvy.

USA’s Top 3 of this year

Let’s have a look at the winning ads of this year. How did we get to this Top 3? We believe ads should score well on both dimensions and cannot compensate for a low score on one and a high score on the other dimension. Capital One Quicksilver is clearly the number one, with Coca-Cola coming in second. Third place, on the other hand, turned out to be a little more difficult to determine. Although Golden Corral and Amazon have comparable scores in terms of breakthrough, Amazon’s advertisement surpasses Golden Corral’s in brand building, leading to a superior overall performance for Amazon’s ad. Thus, the Top 3 Christmas ads in the USA in 2023 are:

1. Capital One Quicksilver
2. Coca-Cola
3. Amazon

Capital one quicksilver

The Capital One Quicksilver commercial, featuring John Travolta as Santa Claus, tops the list as the number one ad and also is my personal favourite. With its distinctive use of the Bee Gees’ hit ‘Stayin’ Alive’ as a soundtrack, it could be one of the most discussed commercials of Christmas 2023.

This song serves as a reference to Travolta’s iconic role as Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever from 1977. At the age of 69, Travolta still has its charisma and plays a very charming Santa Claus, shopping at different places with his Capital One credit card. The final shot is on the dance floor with a dancing Santa Claus. This ad scores highest of all US Christmas ads on unaided brand recall, it scores high on engagement, and among one of the highest on excitement.

When examining the open answers, John Travolta is mentioned a lot as well as the music. One response sums it up pretty nicely: “The music, John Travolta and the dancing. The whole ad is great!!!”

Figure 2: Capital One Quicksilver 2023

Coca-Cola

Coming in second is Coca-Cola’s ad featuring many Santas. Here, the music also plays a big role and having a non-traditional Christmas song seems to pay off for this ad as well. Celeste is singing the fantastic song ‘Anyone Can Be Santa.’

The ad features many Santas who are doing their laundry, riding the subway, having dinner and getting ready for Christmas Eve. The focus is given on two important values of Coca-Cola – kindness and sharing with others -, and that perfectly fits the Christmas spirit. The advertisement indicates that anyone can show kindness to others, even in small ways, and thus “Anyone can be Santa.”

The Coca-Cola bottles are visible throughout the ad, which is reflected in top scores for top-of-mind and unaided brand recall. It also scores relatively high on excitement. Helping one another, and being kind to each other are mentioned most often as the most appealing elements of this ad. An eye-catching comment: “All those happy Santas making each other happy. Just a wonderful ad for spreading love, kindness and caring without being syrupy. Just wonderful, watchable and unique.”

Figure 3: Coca-Cola USA 2023

Amazon

Amazon comes in third place, this time without a Santa Claus but featuring three elderly friends. Of all US Christmas ads of this year, the Amazon ad scores highest on brand building. It has the highest scores for enjoyment, excitement, relevance, understanding and sharing with others. It also evokes the highest number of associations.

The ad carries an emotional, heartwarming story about three old friends and conveys a message that age is not a limit to having fun and that you can enjoy a sleigh ride at any age. The ad simply gives you a very happy and warm feeling. Words that are being mentioned as most appealing are joy, nostalgia, bringing back memories, happiness, smiles on the faces and elderly ladies. As one respondent mentioned: “The joy of the three ladies going down the hill brought back memories from their childhood. It brought them love.”

Figure 4: Amazon USA 2023 

Finally, there is one more ad worth mentioning: Golden Corral’s Christmas ad is performing surprisingly well, finishing just slightly behind Amazon. It features its holiday buffet and shows a family dining in their restaurant enjoying the food. Golden Corral is very much visible and highly recognisable.

The food and the family are something that is appealing to Americans: “The comfortable pleasant atmosphere shown made it so much more upscale than some other buffet places. The father has a great sense of humour and makes the kids enjoy the experience even more. Grandma is the icing on the cake and adorable. It is so positive in so many ways. It is delightful without being overly saccharine.”

conclusion

In summary, we can draw a few general conclusions:

• Santa Claus has a long tradition in the US and is playing the lead role in two of the three best-performing ads.
• In addition, we see that this year’s US Christmas ads lag in terms of breakthrough while performing well in terms of brand building. The majority of the advertisements make you happy and put a smile on your face.

Finally, we’d like to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful 2024 from everyone at DVJ!