If there’s one thing that we love here at Exeposé, its Christmas! If you mix that with my love for the Screen section you end up with a very excited Editor-in-Chief, about to share the absolute best and worst of this year’s Christmas TV advertisement. Now, for a long time, John Lewis has been renowned as the best of the bunch. Let’s see how they fair this year.
13. Tesco
I did not get this advert. If anyone knows what is going on, please let me know. It is nearly a beautiful tale of family and memory and the imoprtance of Christmas, but then everyone starts turning into gingerbread. Due to some pretty shocking animation, it is unfortunately placed last in the ONLY list that matters this Christmas.
12. Coca Cola
“Chat GPT: Make me a Christmas advert for Coca Cola”
It seems Coca Cola had a bit of an AI mix up. Somebody forgot to do the animation and had a last-minute chat with GPT to sort it out. Coca Cola are renouned for thier Christmas advert literally putting their brand into the narrative of Santa in his red suit. However this year, perhaps in an attempt to be ahead of the curve when it comes to AI, Coca Cola hired no actors and instead their advert features various animals and landscape scenes. It does carry some of the magical elements of your usual Christmas advert, but felt very scattered and unconventional. In this case, perhaps AI isn’t the answer!
11. Morrisons
This advert is about as bland as it gets. That’s all there is to say really.
10. M&S Clothing and Home
This advert tells the story of a child who starts to control the world around her through a snow globe with the lyrics “I believe in myricals” in the background. Gravity starts shifting and Christmas is started. Its fun, but also nowhere near as good as the M&S Food ad.
9. Aldi
Now we’re getting somewhere. Heading towards the ones the British public were bound to love. The Aldi advert followed the recurring tale of animated Kevin the carrot. This time, he’s on an “impossible mission” to save the Christmas spirit from the Humbug Headquarters. It’s got childish humour, a lovely little poem and is just quite a nice animation to fill our screens this Christmas.
8. Lidl
This is such a wholesome advert. But I really dislike the voice that narrates it and that’s the only reason its so low on my list. The advert encourages it’s buters to gift presents to Lidl’s toy bank and “share the magic”. It carries all the lovely tropes of the spirit of Christmas whilst sharing a realy important message about gratitiude and being aware that not all children get a whole bucket of presents at Christmas.
7. Sainsbury’s
I love the BFG and that little Sophie is now working for Sainsbury’s, giving everyone their perfect Christmas dinner. No complaints, but others are better…
6. Amazon
It’s cute, but why am I STILL listening to a man sing?
5. Asda
Asda’s ad this year features a collection of gnomes and a lot of fairly rubbish gnome related humour. It’s tacky, on the nose, simple, but brilliant.
4. M&S
It’s the food one that gets the spot at number four. Vicar of Dibley star Dawn French gets the help of a little Christmas fairy who spruces the house up just in time for the neighbours to arrive. It’s a single line that I love the most, “I don’t even have any M&S food”- for M&S food is the only kind of food!! M&S have done so well to lean into their extravagance and the British public absolutely love it.
3. John Lewis
For me, John Lewis’ powerful adverts almost always make it to the top of a list like this. Because I have a little sister, and because I love a tale of childhood memories, I really enjoyed this advert, but it sits at number 3 this year. I agree with many who have said that Christmas adverts shouldn’t include a person in the shop they’re advertising, and John Lewis show an actual John Lewis. How radical!
2. Boots
Whilst this caused all sorts of debate, it’s a brilliant advert about the underappreciated Mrs Claus with the tagline: “you thought it was all him?” I really loved this advert and I’ll be happy to see on my screens this Christmas.
1. Waitrose
At number one, it HAS to be Waitrose. This advert made me giggle, who’d have seen that coming. It plays on the detective-enters-a-family-home trope, like An Inspector Calls or Knives Out, but instead the star-studded cast are questioned over the missing Waitrose Red Velvet Bauble Desert. The advert came in two parts, leaving its captured audience waiting to find out who the culprit was. This is a brilliant example of powerful and humorous advertising.
So there you go, Christmas is saved because Exeposé ranked those Christmas ads! Wishing everyone a lovely Christmas.
