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Christmas is coming! And once again, the nation’s retailers are releasing adverts that turn the humble business of flogging sprouts and sweaters into a noble art form. But, as ever, the blessings of the season haven’t been distributed evenly.
This year, the horde of breathy-voiced lasses who used to soundtrack Christmas adverts are tragically out of work (though maybe they’ll find alternate employment in the booming ASMR industry). Worse still, a flurry of controversy is surrounding some of this year’s entrants to the non-official competition. The Boots advert is being boycotted by far-right types just because it stars Adjoa Andoh, a black woman who stated the bleeding obvious and called the royal family ‘terribly white’ during the King’s coronation. And campaign group Fathers4Justice is telling men to stay away from John Lewis because there weren’t enough blokes in their ad this year. Yikes.
But despite this drama, the wannabe auteur directors who staff the nation’s ad agencies have unleashed some works of a surprising and troubling beauty, capturing all the magic and contradictions of Christmas. Who will get the Grand Prix? And who will be shamed by a Golden Razzie? Read on and find out.
2024’s top festive TV adverts, ranked from worst to best
11. LIDL
Academy Award-winning director Tom Hooper is clearly deeply scarred by the brutal reception given to his 2019 movie Cats. So he’s fled to the far safer land of making supermarket telly ads. Here, a dear little girl with pigtails is given some tiny bells that give her magical powers, so she sweetly turns her brothers’ loathed brussels sprouts into biscuits, then makes a giant gingerbread man who peeks in at the window. After that, she decides that she should use her magic to send her presents to other, less fortunate children, in the spirit of LIDL’s annual Toy Bank giving scheme. It’s sweet, but even less realistic than Judi Dench’s CGI-aided transformation into a gigantic moggy. Hooper is clearly blissfully unaware that the schedule-free, sugar-packed, cabin fever climate of your average British Christmas is enough to turn even the meekest eight-year-old into a dangerous psychopath who are more likely to use their magical powers to turn their siblings into mice. For that, at least, we can envy him.
Artistic ambition: 3/10. I’m not allowed to go any lower, it’s for charity.
10. McDonald’s
This fast-food retailer exercises a formidable level of self-control by getting a full minute into their advert before they even mention food. Instead, we get some yawn-worthy trad Christmas stuff that feels remarkably like the Coca Cola adverts: Santa in his sleigh gliding through the night sky, etc. Then the immortal red-suited present-deliverer stops at a McDonald’s. You think he’s going to cave and get a burger. Or at least a lava hot apple pie to use as a pocket warmer. But no! He’s buying a healthy pack of carrots that are labelled ‘reindeer treats’. How charming. How dull.
Artistic ambition: 4/10. Christmas is no time for moderation.
9. Amazon
Amazon is currently attempting an ambitious corporate rebrand from ‘arch-capitalist warehouse empire of doom’ to ‘workers’ paradise’. Recently, its adverts have shown its staff fulfilling their humble dreams of retraining as robotics experts. Now, its Christmas number puts the spotlight on an ordinary cleaner who warbles dreamily as he mops a fancy theatre – until his colleagues order him a dinner jacket that transforms him into a suave lounge singer who delivers a sweet and entirely uncontroversial rendering of ‘What The World Needs Now’. Pop off, king! But sing from your own songbook next time.
Artistic ambition: 3/10. We’re on the level of those viral videos of ‘ordinary guys’ excelling on tube station pianos.
8. ALDI
Kevin the carrot is back! And appropriately for a supermarket that’s known for its knockoffs, his outing this year is a gleefully derivative jaunt inspired by The Grinch and James Bond. A generic villain has stolen the spirit of Christmas, and Kevin’s on a mission to get it back. There’s too much smut for my liking – fake boobs, fake bum – but I will generously overlook that. The story ends with a delicious feast, cheekily featuring ALDI’s lawsuit-sparking Colin the Caterpillar knock-off Cuthburt, wearing a Santa hat. Oh ALDI, you’re naughty but we love it.
Artistic ambition: 1/10. But who cares, it’s fun.
7. John Lewis
Britain’s beloved department store basically invented the Christmas ad as we know it: fey girl covers of cool songs, heartstring-tugging storyline, tie-in soft toy at a store near you. And it was amazing. But watching a John Lewis Christmas ad these days is a bit like seeing a fave band from your teenage years – only to realise they’ve got too up in their heads to deliver the pure hit of feelgood nostalgia the crowd is there for. After last year’s cryptic tale of a monstrous present-devouring pot plant (an allegory for the perils of overconsumption?), it’s gone even weirder this year. A woman falls through a rail of clothes and into her own past, searching through her childhood experiences to find the perfect gift for her sister. It’s head-spinningly weird and kind of beautiful in how it shows the non-linear way we experience our own memories – if Virginia Woolf had stooped to working in the ad trade, she would no doubt approve. But it can’t really be described as feelgood. And where’s my cuddly toy?
Artistic ambition: 10/10. But much like David Lynch’s Eraserhead, it’s doomed to be under-appreciated in its time.
6. Boots
This year Boots didn’t come to play. Its advert has been called a ‘woke monstrosity’ for firing a warning shot over the heads of all the lazy blokes who stumble through its doors on Christmas Eve to panic buy an Impulse gift set and a pair of American tan tights for their loyal wife of 20 years. Bridgerton’s Adjoa Andoh plays an all-powerful Mother Christmas who sources and packs pressies with ruthless efficiency while her red-suited husband snores – then gets all the credit. It’s a feminist call back to Boots’ iconic ‘Here Come The Girls’ adverts of 2007-2010, which were joyful exercises in glammed up girl power. And it’s a balm for overworked matriarchs everywhere: a metaphorical slick of Savlon over the paper cuts, oven burns and emotional wounds suffered in creating the magic of Christmas.
Artistic ambition: 5/10. Much like the films of Emerald Fennell, it made me feel simultaneously ‘seen’, patronised and eventually depressed at its ultimate reaffirmation of the status quo.
5. M&S
Is this an advert for M&S or an advert for Dawn French? She certainly gets a hefty chunk of screen time, having presumably drowned last year’s co-star Jennifer Saunders headfirst into a flute of festive champagne. But who cares? It’s fun. Here, French is a grinch who’s foolishly invited a horde of neighbours she hardly knows round for festive nibbles, then has slobbed about all day in her jimmy jams instead of dutifully cooking up a spread. Then, a little helper fairy version of herself pops up to help out and transform her Cinderella-style into the perfect hostess. Can I have a Christmas mini me too, please?
Artistic ambition: 6/10. I enjoy the alternate interpretation that she’s having a festive nervous breakdown, the fairy is a hallucination and that the guests are horrified by the sight of the Vicar of Dibley ranting about sausage rolls in her PJs.
4. Sainsbury’s
Mentioning the name of your company within the first few seconds of a Christmas advert is, I think, a little gauche. But Sainsbury’s just about earns it with its delumptious Roald Dahl-inspired story of the BFG, who turns to the supermarket to put together a feast that’s much, much tastier than his former diet of snozzcumbers. He’s aided by store assistant Sophie (ah, they grow up so fast) who helps him scour the country for delicacies, then put them through the windows of deserving families.
Artistic ambition: 6/10. There’s none of the darkness of Dahl here, but a lot of the magic.
3. Tesco
This advert has a weirder vibe than the midnight cigarette queue at my local Tesco Metro, and for that I can only applaud it. Superficially, it’s a sugar-sweet story about a guy who’s missing his grandmother, who used to bake gingerbread houses every Christmas. His grandfather sadly offers him a shop-bought gingerbread biscuit – and, in an enjoyable insult to Tesco’s in-store bakery, this disappointing bake seems to open up a bizarre rift in the fabric of the universe that gradually turns everything into gingerbread – not just cute stuff like houses and trees, but stuff that no one in their right mind would ever eat, like car air fresheners or hair clippings or rubbish bins. Ugh. Soon, even people’s faces are turning to gingerbread, a reminder that our own mortality is as brittle as the biscuits we consume. Some people have called this advert ‘sweet’ and ‘nostalgic’ but I don’t see it. I’ll never touch a stollen again.
Artistic ambition: 10/10. Cronenburg levels of body horror, but make it festive.
2. Morrisons
A Christmas ad with no plot? The audacity! The nerve! But you know what? It works. This year Morrisons’ offering is as joyful as a skit from The Muppets, with cheeky oven gloves singing and dancing (well, jiggling) their way through a Bugsy Malone number. The visuals are gorgeous, with theatre-inspired scenery creating kaleidoscopic visions inspired by golden age Hollywood: gigantic prawns tower over endless conveyor belts of seafood cocktails, adorable cat mitts dance before a painted backdrop of an impossibly blue sky. Dreamy.
Artistic ambition: 7/10. A beautifully fluffy custard pie to the face of Christmas advert tradition.
1. Waitrose
A Christmas mystery? Oh how delectable. This very entertaining detective-style advert has a celeb-heavy cast including Succession’s Matthew Macfadyen and ‘Fleabag’’s sister Sian Clifford. It challenges you to work out which family member nicked a bauble-themed dessert from the fridge. Christmas adverts are something that audiences end up watching again and again, as the fridge fills with treats and the wrapping cupboard empties of sellotape, and Waitrose knows that. So clues are peppered throughout, ready to niggle away at our brains with each successive viewing. There’s going to be a second instalment where all is revealed, building the festive tension to Christmas morning levels. I reckon the cat dunnit, but am excited to be proved wrong.
Artistic ambition: 7/10. It’s all a bit Midsomer Murders so far but who knows, maybe the forthcoming part two will plunge us into Nordic Noir. And I can’t wait.
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