Background

In the Netherlands, Christmas commercials hold a special place in television culture. Much like the Super Bowl in the United States is known for its spectacular commercials, the Dutch festive season is the moment when brands showcase their most creative, emotional storytelling. Over the years, several Christmas campaigns have achieved iconic status, moving and entertaining millions of viewers and winning the Ster Gouden Loeki, the public award for best commercial. These campaigns demonstrate how advertising can contribute to the collective holiday spirit.

Description

Ster, the sales house of the Dutch public broadcaster, created the “Christmas Commercial Premiere”: a dedicated television moment to celebrate the creativity and craftsmanship behind Dutch Christmas commercials. Rather than dispersing new festive campaigns across regular advertising breaks throughout December, Ster bundled them together into special primetime blocks on NPO 1, the main Dutch public TV channel.

For the first time in its history, Ster brought together the newest Christmas commercials from Dutch advertisers and broadcast them as a collective event. The premiere aired on Saturday 6 December 2025, with the first block scheduled around 20:20 directly after the NOS Journaal (the main evening news) and before Wie is de Mol (the Dutch version of the mega-success reality show The Mole). Due to strong demand from advertisers, all wanting to be part of this special moment, Ster added a second block around 21:25.

Both blocks were introduced with a specially developed festive opening featuring Loeki de Leeuw, a animated lion character that has been part of Ster’s on-screen identity since 1972 – Loeki is truly an iconic character of the channel, bringing with him all the strong signalling that such a trusted and loved mascot can offer This framing signalled to viewers that they were about to watch something special rather than a regular commercial break.
[Editor’s note: If you want to find out about the power of “fluent devices” in advertising, we recommend reading up System1’s research on the topic here]

Ster promoted the premiere in advance through announcements on TV, radio, and online video, building anticipation for a moment that viewers would not want to miss.

Results

The “Christmas Commercial Premiere” stood out in terms of viewer engagement. The first block achieved 120% more viewers in time-shifted viewing compared to the same commercial block in preceding weeks. The second block achieved 53% more delayed viewing. These results indicate that viewers actively chose to watch the premiere blocks, a strong signal of appointment viewing.

Viewer retention from the preceding programme into the ad break was also significantly higher than usual. The first block retained 74% of viewers from the preceding programme, compared to an average of 66% for the same slot in previous weeks, an uplift of 11%. The second block retained 54% of viewers versus the usual 42%, an increase of 30%.

The campaign demonstrated that when advertising is treated as content worth watching, viewers respond positively. Creating dedicated, clearly framed advertising moments can turn commercial breaks into television events that audiences actively seek out rather than skip.

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