So far, Christmas 2025 feels like a chorus sung in unison, drowning out the individual voices. The year's narrative is being defined not by bold invention, but by shrewd tactical choices: borrowed characters, the warm embrace of nostalgic songs, and an aggressive, escalating arms race for the earliest launch window.
The Power of Particularity: Distinctive Assets Still Win
In this sea of sameness, distinctive brand assets remain the anchors of Christmas effectiveness. Supermarkets and those with long-running brand worlds consistently outperform one-off 'film drops,' as evidenced by analysis from System1. Familiar, episodic faces demonstrate the profound power of consistent storytelling to build memory and drive effectiveness that compounds, year after year.
Aldi (Kevin the Carrot) is the textbook case for owning an asset. What began as a risky gambit now shortcuts warmth and recognisability. Kevin avoids the sameness problem because he’s a repeatable, evolving asset, not a one-off celebrity rental. The risk, however, is complacency; characters must grow each year, or they calcify into background noise.
Conversely, campaigns like Debenhams/Boots fall squarely into the borrowed-equity trap: recognisable characters deployed without a reason to choose the retailer. This familiarity without integration produces a merry-go-round of attention with no converted preference. Tie-ins must answer the shopper's question: why this character, why this brand, why now?
Renting Emotion: The Nostalgia and Music Strategy
If originality took a back seat, then nostalgia and music stepped up to do the emotional heavy lifting. Re-records, familiar melodies, and 90s tracks are expertly bridging generations. It’s emotional recognition, not merely newness, that is truly cutting through the noise.
John Lewis is the master of this strategic deployment. They get the brief because they start with a precise human moment - the dad/son reconnection - and the gift becomes the natural answer. Crucially, their use of tracks, such as Labrinth’s “Where Love Lives,” is not just emotional wallpaper; it serves to anchor a complex emotional truth and bridge generations. The track is the emotional currency that validates the narrative, protecting the creative and keeping it restrained. The music, in this rare spot, helps the insight do the heavy lifting, not the spectacle.
However, this tactic is expensive if misapplied. Sports Direct makes the season’s classic mistake: loudness without a spine. Big music and chaotic execution can win attention, but attention without association is fleeting and expensive. If you only buy salience, you pay a premium for a transient effect.
Early Launch: A Strategy, Not a Sin
The earlier start to the season is no festive overkill; it is a deliberate strategy. Brands are moving launch dates to effectively stretch spend across critical paydays and Black Friday, securing longer periods of reach and relevance. John Lewis didn’t just create a trend; they led the way by responding pragmatically to evolving consumer spending patterns.
M&S lands because it knows who it’s talking to. It trades anthem emotion for humour and usefulness, selling “effortless hosting.” This aligns the product role neatly with an early launch: you must pivot the brief away from Christmas Day and toward parties and hosting moments - that’s where early timing helps behaviour.
The Challenge of Choice
This season presents a study in critical choices. Will you launch early and fight the frequency battle? Will you rent familiarity with big-name talent or popular songs? Or will you focus on building a genuine world that compounds year after year?
Kantar’s Brand Power principles are blunt, but useful: be meaningful, different, and salient. If your campaign cannot pass all three, be ruthless about which one you are truly buying with your investment, and be certain of the why.
How do you really build brand power over Christmas? Going early makes sense, it helps brands claim attention and build memory. But everyone’s playing in the same space: big tracks, big characters, big emotion. The real challenge is using those tools in a way that still feels unmistakably yours, and genuinely different for your audience.
James Joyce said, ‘In the particular lies the universal.’ And that’s exactly what great Christmas storytelling understands. We all know the season is about connection – taking a beat, coming together, showing care – but the ork that truly captures our attention finds that truth in the small, human details.
The knowing look, the unexpected act of kindness, the son doing something quietly beautiful. That’s where a brand can turn something familiar into something that feels profoundly real.
Source: warc.com