The countdown to Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year – so says Andy Williams and so say us. It’s wonderful for so many reasons. Neighbourhoods glow with twinkly lights, frosty mornings are picture perfect, pigs in blankets become a diet staple, and our TVs get a festive makeover with re-runs of The Vicar of Dibley and a smattering of Christmas adverts.

The latter is our focus today, as we choose our top Christmas adverts for 2023. Spoiler alert: John Lewis hasn’t made the cut this year.

KFC Christmas Advert

This KFC Christmas advert tops the list for its humour. The build-up is sensational, with social media comments from KFC customers begging for turkey at Christmas, set to the iconic operatic sounds of nessun dorma. Our favourite comment? ‘Kfc wen you gonna do turkey at #xmas’. Keeping the grammatically painful, text-speak wording was a hilarious move.

The crescendo? We saw you. We heard you. And we ignored you. We’re sticking with chicken.

That in itself would be enough to promote KFC, but they have released The Stuffing Stacker burger. Happy days!

Tesco Christmas Advert

Choosing such an un-Christmassy song is always a bold move for a classic festive advert, but Tesco has pulled it off with How Bizarre by OMC. The theme is: Helping you #BecomeMoreChristmas. It captures what we all do in the supermarket at this time of year. We buy festive treats, then some more festive treats, then realise we only actually went into Tesco for milk.

Throw in family get-togethers, Christmas nostalgia and a stroppy-turned-chipper teenager, and you’re most definitely onto a winner. Especially when it is, without a doubt, the advert that we’ve seen the most times this season.

Amazon

Joy Ride, this year’s Christmas offering from Amazon, is simple yet so effective. In their own words, it’s “a story that proves it’s never too late to embrace your inner child and make new memories with old friends.”

Three elderly women watch kids go sledging from afar, with one having the bright idea to purchase a comfortable seat cushion from Amazon. The next thing you know, they’re gliding down the snowy hill themselves, reflecting on their youth and living life to the full. It’s incredibly touching without going overboard.

Aldi

Taking inspiration from Willy Wonka is a clever move by Aldi, with the recent release of the film Wonka starring Timothée Chalamet. There’s so much to love in this Christmas advert… the innuendos, the narration by Jim Broadbent (a national treasure whose voice manages to make you feel festive), and the return of Kevin the Carrot, who first graced our screens back in 2016.

It’s a wonderful example of sticking with what works, but switching up the storyline each year. Bravo Aldi!

Boots

“Mum, who gives presents to Santa?” – an opening line like this one is bound to lead to a heartwarming advert. What follows is a mad-dash road trip to ‘The North’, with an untimely breakdown, unusual modes of transport, and lots of gift giving along the way.

Do they make it? Yes. What does Santa get? Boots own brand flight socks.

Why do we like this Christmas advert? The unexpected humorous ending, the music, the regular yet understated product promotions, and the #GiveJoy strapline.

There’s no failsafe formula for the perfect Christmas advert; either you capture the nation, or you don’t. But there are a number of tricks that can help to get it right. For us, it’s humour, heart, an easy-to-remember strapline, and music that thoroughly fits the bill, whether festive or not.

From everyone at Trident Marketing, we hope you have a very happy Christmas and New Year. Bring on 2024 – you can keep an eye on our blog to see what we get up to next.